Another Friend Gone

 © 2021 by Tom King

Corin the Piper

 

CORIN THE PIPER
           by Sheila King



CHORUS:

C    Em7  Am   Dm  Dmaj7    G
Corin the Piper lives here no more
Em            Am      D                       G
He and his mother left when he was four
C       Em7               Am       Dm         G
Some day there'll be music, same as before
        Em                      Am
But it won't be easy for Corin
C     G7          C
Lives here no more

    C     Em7           Am       D                           C
1. I sit here at the window, watchin' the children play
En                          Am             D                               G
They don't know I'm even here, but they come here every day.
C                      Em7         Am           Dm                       G
Sometimes the tears start fallin', and I wonder what they're for
Em          Am               C     G7        C
Until I remember, Corin lives here no more

CHORUS:

2. He filled my days with laughter, sunshine and song,
And Corin, the drummer, was seldom ever wrong.
Sometimes I hear him singing, and my heart starts to soar.
And then I remember, Corin lives here no more.

CHORUS:

© 1980 by Sheila King,
@ Alexandria, LA

* For the story behind this song/prophecy click on this link: Signs from God

A Good Man Gone

A Good Man Gone

A good man leaves such a hole behind when he is gone.

So many could have beens.

So many should have beens.

So many would have beens.

Strung out like stones in our path

Waiting to trip us up and make us weep,

When we remember who he was,

And why we miss him.

Micah Joel King (1977-2006)

© 2019 by Tom King

April 26 - An Old Man Without a Dog

An Old Man Without a Dog

An old man without a dog

Walks down the hill toward home,

Just past the place along the road

Where he left the dog behind.

In the same way he left

Other companions,

A brother, a father, a son

A love already home waiting.

The ground gently falls away,

Beneath his feet, sloping down

Toward his journey’s end.

Without thought, he slows his pace.

Meandering now, his senses alive,

He drinks the nuances of smell,

Of light and color and movement,

Of leaves rustling, of birds chattering.

Life is precious down near the end,

Now that he finally sees where he is going.

His feet linger not wanting

To miss anything worth tasting.

He wanders steadily toward home,

Where he knows a comfort waits;

Waits with arms outstretched,

Listening for his footsteps.

© 2016 by Tom King

April 18 - My Daisy's Bear

Daisy gets a vacuuming in our old chair....

My Daisy’s Bear

She’s gone too suddenly

I’d no time to prepare.

So I sit here of an evening

In our broken down old chair

Daisy thought she was a lap dog

She’d jump up in the chair

With me for her daily cuddle

And take a nap up here.

Sometimes she’d bring her bear

Or squeaky duck or mouse.

We’d play a game of catch and shake;

Romping all about the house.

She’d watch the world with me.

Lying there on her rumpled bed.

Or she’d sit beside my recliner

And make me scratch her head.

Now my chair’s half empty.

And broken down and battered

By a heavy man and big old hound

A Fellowship that to us mattered.

I sometimes see her shadow

On my old companion’s bed.

So I keep her old bear by me now

And sometimes scratch her head.

©  2016 by Tom King

April 16 - Daisy's Chains

Daisy’s Chains

She was just a dog, so why the hole
In our hearts, now that she is gone?
We didn’t rescue her. She rescued us.
It was our souls she’d print herself upon.

She danced upon our hearts not long enough
Always underfoot, her foolish lopsided grin
Telling us there were squirrels outside
That needed chasing up their trees again.

A chain of evidence, of a vibrant doggy life;
Everywhere the traces of the love she left behind;
Of a life well-lived among the humans she possessed.
Traces meant for us one day to find.

One by one I’ll collect them all – her toys, her blankets;
Her bed, her brush, her collar, all the things about her.
And her human mom and me, weep over every bit and bob,
We come upon in our struggle to live on without her.

©  2016 by Tom King

Falling Branches

Falling Branches

I hear them falling  as I walk;
Old dry limbs, worn and weathered
Taking that last long tumble, crashing
Down through the green canopy,
Shattering against the Earth
To be gathered up as firewood
Or kindling for the long winter
That we may sit and remember by the fire.

Sometimes it is the wind,
Sometimes they fall in a perfect silences
For no apparent cause;
The end of long careers aloft
Support for ratty nests of squirrels
Or the neat dwellings of warblers,  
Providing shade for aged couples
And dogs strolling below.

Long and useful lives spent,
The branches withhold their secrets;
Mute witnesses to what goes on below
Over which they provide
Cover from the sun,
Blunting of the rain,
Handholds for climbing boys
And soft whispers in the treetops.

As autumn deepens into winter
They fall faster and still faster
Leaving the heights above
To their younger brethren
Old soldiers dying one by one
Their secrets left unshared
Their deeds on our behalf remembered
For but a time by winter firelight

by Tom King

Shadows Along A Moonlit Path

Photo by Dave Candler - used by permission

Shadows Along A Moonlit Path

I don't remember when first I noticed,

   That shadows follow me in moonlight, pale and spectral,

Shimmering silver puddles and among them a ghostly image

   Swirling along behind me in the darkling wood.

I find myself shouting at the moon sometimes,
   But the words fall flat and leave no echo behind,
Absorbed and dulled by trees along the path,
   Drawn up into the satin, sable sky and into silence.

The moon does not often listen when you cry.
   It pats you on the shoulder, "There, there child."
The way an aunt would comfort, not revealing,
   But obscuring, hiding that which gives you pain.

They're beautiful the shadows all along the moonlit paths,
   Useful when you only want to see in muted colors.
Reflections of the sun tamped down and muffled;
   When open weeping cannot be permitted.

I waited till the sun came up to pray aloud,
   I needed dawn to feel if God were listening.
To complete the long unreality of the night,
   And the poor comforts of the misguided moon.

© 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 23 - Vapor Trails

Vapor Trails

A boy dreams he could someday be

   A rocketman, splitting the sky

Screaming toward space, his titanium steed

   Bucking beneath him as it claws its way upward.

A young man takes a hard look at himself;

   His flat feet, his weak eyes, his empty pockets.

With all these things and no influence his,

   The sky is not within his reach; not in this life anyway.

The vapor trails left scratched across the stratosphere

   And blown away by winds that he will never feel

Through the seat of his pants and the chute on his back,

   Taunt, then drift away just like his dreams of flying.

So on the ground he flies as best he can

   Lifting others held down more than even he

A rocketman without the sky to scratch his name upon.

   And yet a life lived well, a flier just the same.

© 2014 by Tom King

After You've Gone

"Eeyore" by Micah King

The cold mountain path
Wends upward; takes me farther
Step by Step from you

A haiku - © 2011

 by Tom King

Oak Trees on Fourth Street

Oak Trees on Fourth Street

Copyright 2003 by Tom King

My brother and I were never much attached

To earth; remorseless clay that never grieves

To catch our bones should ever we descend

The warm red earth enfolding fallen leaves.

When I was young we climbed the oaks out back.

My mother couldn't bring herself to watch.

She closed the kitchen curtains; lowered the shades,

And left us swinging limb to branch to crotch.

High up among the brittle boughs we sat

Long golden afternoons and fiery dusks,

Where God would whisper soft among the leaves,

The secret things He only shared with us.

When last I saw my brother he was climbing

Still higher slipping upward toward the light

But down there in the hard red clay he left

His bones behind; in payment for the flight

Nor was he last of those I’d lose among

The branches high and airy.

Did they hear, God whisper secrets, somehow I did not?

And is that why He’s left me waiting here?

High among the branches I drink sunlight

That trickles down among the leaves and boughs

Listening hard to hear a secret whispered

The one in all the years, I’ve missed somehow.