April 30 - It Was Raining Over Here

 

It Was Raining Over Here

I spent my early life, living in the backyard oaks

And among the brittle branches I would go

To perches in my quiet world, a rustling refuge for

A mind distracted by most everything below

From my aerie, I could see the sunlight

Pouring gold between the clouds that drift along.

But it was raining over here, the moisture making

The soft smells of April go heady, sharp and strong.

Over there the sun goes dropping down in sheets

Rolling cross the roads, the fields, the woods, the brook,

Nice to see when rain was pounding on my head

A spectacle from which a little hope I always took.

I can't climb trees these days and so I walk the roads

Among the trees, looking up to airy realms for consolation.

And I scout the flowers blooming on the berry vines below,

So when picking time arrives, I'll know the best locations.

Pragmatic I've become and old, but without the time I spent

High above the Earth when I was yet an undomesticated child

I'd have never found the stillness of the soul I needed

To pause and notice roadside berries, blooming free and wild.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 29 - The Pickle Conundrum

The Pickle Conundrum

Sweet relish and kosher dills

Sour pickles, sweet gherkins

Dill gherkins, bread and butters

Refrigerator pickles

Pickled peppers, pickled plums,

Pickled onions, green tomatoes

Tsukemonos and slippery Jacks

Pickled and Polish dills

German dills, half-sour pickles

Lime pickles and koolickles

Watermelon rind pickles, pickled beets

Pickled okra and asparagus

Garlic dills and spicy dills

Cabbage pickles, pickled carrots

Mango pickles, pickles deep fried

Sweet and dill pickle chips

A sandwich with pickles

Is a beautiful thing

But how do you choose

Which goes on the bread?

© 2014 by Tom King

April 28 - Mamas Mad at Me

Mamas Mad at Me

I ducked back in the house just now chastened.

Mama bird is feeding a nest of hungry kids

Hungry yellow mouths that pop wide open

Every time I bump the planter where the nest is hid.

She has the right I guess. It's hard enough

To feed four hungry mouths reaching, chirping

The kind of desperation to their calls that make

A mama bird feel guilty; like she's shirking.

I ducked back out of the house just now, further chastened.

Mama's doing her best to clean up the place behind me

The trails of dirt and crumbs and grease I leave behind

Everywhere I go like some aged child with ADD.

She has the right I guess. The house is hers

Ceded long ago to her skill at cleaning and hard working

But as sore bones and failing back slow Mama down,

She feels guilty too like Mama bird, as if she's shirking.

Poor mamas, I knew this day would come, as I got older,

That I would become this decaying crumbling antique

Making messes, shedding hair and worse all over.

Too brittle-boned; too tired to care to clean things till they squeak.

Someday soon, I know I'll be more trouble than I'm worth.

A creepy older guy that smells like liniment and cabbage leaf.

My sense of humor gone along with taste and style and left to be.

Put out to pasture by the kids to give their mom relief.

But I don't really mind. I'm resilient and easily amused. I take

Long walks that free my mind from all that angers or depresses

And the Mamas both on one thing fervently agree – That 

When I'm away from home, at least I can't cause guilt or further messes.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 27 - At the Exit Door

At the Exit Door

He told me, "At least he had an easy passing."

   Meaning it to comfort me, to pad my shock and grief

By suggesting that a speedy death is best;

   Quick, clean - life moving stealthily off planet like a thief.

I do not hold with that and when I go, I shall not slip away,

   I hope to live my life and leave a jagged hole behind

Where I am missing from the lives of those I love,

   An empty space; my absence something that they mind.

Tracy faced a world constricted much by circumstance,

   But from behind the walls her reach extended

To a wider world that knew her very well and loved her

   For her mind and for the soul whose run has not yet ended.

Micah lumbered through this life - a presence indomitable.

   An elvish soul striding the wide world in giant's shoes.

But kneeling down to touch a hundred tiny lives – responsible, self set aside

   The kind of life you live, not what you want but rather what you choose.

These are the kinds of missing souls for whom we grieve.

   Too little time among us, they left us wanting more.

It's good then that God has marked them in His books and that

   They left their muddy prints upon the mat, there at life's exit door.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 26 - Skylights

Skylights

Spattering against the night-darkened skylight

   The rain plays a tune, rising and falling

The woodwinds sing hushed among the firs

   The spoiled hound sprawled at my feet snores softly.

I don't know where all of this is going;

   The rattling keys trailing words from there beneath my fingers,

Staccato counterpoint to the raindrops, Daisy's breathing

   And the low rumble of the refrigerator making ice.

I used to think that anything this pleasant

   Must be a total waste of time and so, in a kind of spite

I may build a fire in a bit to make it nicer and to take away

   The chill that hangs upon the quiet house at 2 AM.

And tomorrow when the sun comes up and spills

   Across the floor, pouring through the skylights down in pools

That warm the carpet. I'll be walking barefoot on them,

   Commuting to the rolltop in the corner, my office by the bookcase.

There should be some reward for getting old; some compensation,

   And what better than skylights playing music in the night

And pouring puddles of light upon the floor each morning.

   A warm nap spot for the dog & place to warm the old man's feet.

© 2014 by Tom King