Stand By Me

"When the night is come and the land is dark.......
When the mountain should crumble to the sea....
No, I won't be afraid.......
No, I won't shed a tear.......
Oh darlin'....'long as you stand by me....."
(Ben E. King  1961)

We have sworn, one another
To stand
Feet fixed firmly in intent
We will stand
Leaving, forsaking all others
We will stand
I have your back, watching to protect you from the unseen
You walk in loyal vigilance against all who would come against us
Remaining planted in the blessings we see
Never trading them for possible blessing seen elsewhere
We are invested in the value each sees in the other
Against, if necessary, family
Against, if required, friends
Against, as needed, against all enemies
Each trusting his partner to seek that which is best
Not for himself alone
Not for the other alone
But for the whole, the all that we can be together
Leaving is but a step
Toward cleaving to one another
Becoming something else
Something other
Something never seen before in this world
Founded in fealty
Forged in the fires of testing
Joy and sorrow
Plenty and poverty
Dance and dying
Worship and weeping
Against all the forces that might crumble our mountain
Stand by me

Tonight We Made Love

Tonight we made love
Laughter and cheese sandwiches
Over a bowl of tomato soup
Thoughtful sharing of heart and mind
Deep thoughts
Footsie played across the span between chairs
I read aloud
She fixed my computer
Tender words
Shared from tender hearts
I love you
Proffered not after the heat of passion
But in the realization of truth
Arm in arm
Lip to lip
We hugged and held one another close
I did the dishes
She scolded the complaining pooch
She laughed at dumb jokes
I told her of my pride in her
Tonight we made love
Not in any sense of entwining bodies
Musky passion
Tonight we made love
In word and deed

I Walked The Hills Of Heaven

I walked the hills of heaven today
Beneath a setting sun
The streets below a grand display
Of golden threads were spun

The gates of pearls like clouds before
His throne rose pillared white
His Spirit like a breath did soar
And beckoned peace invite

In verdant valley then I saw
The bones of men arise
Praising silently in awe
The Maker of the skies

Whose hand was filled with healing light
To all once dead within
Who bowed before His rule and right
And bade Him enter in

To wounded heart to make it whole
To heal where death had been
And rising now, the song did roll
Resounding through my ken.

Hallelujah's cry they then employed
To lifting of the grail
To praise their God, their spirits buoyed
To tell the ancient tale

How God came down to them to dwell
As man midst their travail
To live to break the selfish shell
And the tearing of the Veil.

The balance scales that did assay
Our turning to the night
He righted them again to stay
If we'd live within His light

A gift He offered us for free
Though paid with sweat and blood
To lift us to the place where He
Poured out the cleansing flood

And along the narrow way below
Their hearts all bowed in awe
They glimpsed the God whose love did flow
With no shame or curse from Law.

I walked the hills of heaven today
Rejoicing in the birth
As God's own peace holds man in sway
In His kingdom here on earth





New poem by Tom Klindt

The Bond of the Band.

A simple thing.
A pledge.
A promise.
An expression of the desire of the soul
Offered with an open heart.
A simple premise.
A request.
A question.
A supplication of the most sincere kind
Proffered with hopeful expectation.
A simple response.
A confirming.
A guarantee.
A granting that reciprocates with love
Warranting the hope held breathlessly.
An agreement.
A partnership unfolds.
A covenant begins its forthcoming.
Two souls.
Two hearts.
Two individual existences
Begin the mingling of colors,
And thoughts,
And experiences.
Symbiosis most profound
Is represented by this ring.

Shelves

It's just a set of shelves.
Cobbled together of scraps
Left over from any number of projects.
Remains repurposed.
A little sweat and careful measuring.
Pulling pieces from the pile,
Examining them for suitability,
And joining them with purpose.

It's just a set of shelves.
Standing in a corner of the garage,
Now piled with boxes.
Desiderata deposited.
Stacked with intent on plywood ledges.
Rising straight above the floor.
Squared and plumbed with care.
Strong enough to hang a beef.

It's just a set of shelves.
They hold more than meets the eye.
A prophecy of order enacted.
A life repurposed,
With love and considered intent.
Security built from the scrap heap.
Stability freely offered.
A gift of permanence.

Ghosts of Christmases Past

Silver birds and shiny bells,
Tiny hand blown figures
More fragile for each passing year.
Tenderly wrapped in paper,
Yellowed and crackling of age.
With each solstice, another is crumbled dust,
Fragments remaining as testimony
That before was an ornament,
Cherished,
Handed down four generations.

Canning jar lids painted clumsily.
Handprints on colored paper.
A clothespin cowboy with a pipe cleaner coil.
All crafted in wide-eyed love for Daddy.
Hung each season with pride.

Baby's first Christmas.
Two of them,
Purchased in the joy of initial sharing,
Kept to be shared in the passing down of generational remembrance.

Tattered angel,
Beneficent gazer,
Her once white robe yellowed and tattered,
Announcing the joy of the season from the highest height.

A star once brightly painted
Now scratched,
Dulled with age,
Treasured still for its beacon of light.

These are the ghosts of Christmases past.
Gone.
Not lost.
Destroyed.
Tossed aside as valueless.
Victims of a tumult of change and ending.
The M.I.A. of a war not of their choosing.

Innocents killed in the fury of vengeance?
Casualties of the last act of control?
Silent symbols with pointing fingers?
Life and of love flung away as though their matter meant naught.

And now it is Christmas again.

My bitterness could know no bounds.
My sorrow could be inconsolable.
Except.
You cannot destroy the love with which they were saved and crafted.
You cannot remove the blocks of heart they filled.
You cannot force me to never love again.

They live in the bright laughter of children.
They exist in the exultant lift of carols into the night.
They exist in the joy of a newly heralded celebration.
They continue unabated,
Unhushed,
Unstilled.

The Ghost of Christmas future has no terror for me.
The Ghosts of Christmas past only serve to remind me
That the Ghost of Christmas present lives and laughs and celebrates,
 Despite you.

Memories abide not in things,
But in the things those things represent.
The glass may be shattered.
The careful crafting may be thrown aside.
The very messengers of heaven may be flung to the far corners.
Yet.

Faith abides in hope.

Hope flourishes in love.

Love overcomes all.

In the end, that is the meaning of Christmas.

Evidence

The only thing you've ever stolen from me
Is my heart.
The only lying you've ever done to me
Is in my arms.
The only thing you've ever broken in me
Are walls.
The only thing you've ever withheld from me
Is unreasonable anger.
The only prying you've ever tried with me
Is the loosening of chains
The only control you've ever attempted with me
Is of yourself.
The only dashing you've ever proffered me
Is to my side.

I trust you.
Implicitly.
Wholeheartedly.
Unreservedly.
Absolutely.
With my life, my mind, my hopes.

So why does the voice whisper "Wait for the other shoe to drop?"
So why do I linger in the thought "The Hellbitch will unloose herself?
So why do I anticipate imminent abandonment?

It is that somewhere,
Deep inside myself,
Resulting from my history and experience,
I do not trust myself.
To hope brightly.
To dream rightly.
To choose wisely.
These I fear to believe are within me.

The deepest deception I have ever known is my own.
The basest treatment I have ever realized is mine.
The greatest infidelity I have ever experienced is to myself.

Because of these,
I fear me.
So I diminish what you offer so apparently and freely.
.
God help me.