Besides

Here I am, by your side.

Here I’ll be, whatere betide.

Here I am as day has gone.

Here I’ll be at dawn.

I hope you will agree

to adventure forth with me,

travel through this promised land.

Come and take my hand.

I’ll be there, with you,

together we two.

This world of joy and delight

shines so bright!

Call on me; I’ll be there.

Lean on me; I want to share

every joy and every pain,

every rest and strain.

I’ll be there, with you,

together we two.

This world of joy and delight

shines so bright!

Share with me all your cares,

secret dreams, hopes and prayers,

every hopeless design;

and I will share mine.

As years roll past,

we’ll stay steadfast,

two hearts moving in time.

Yours is my soul.

Without you I can’t be whole.

I give you now

my most solemn vow

to remain true.

I now belong to you,

through joys and life’s cruel tides,

and all besides.

Copyright ©2018, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

Inspired by Helen Jane Long’s tune, “Besides”, to which this poem may be sung

Orthodoxy

Every faith has one.

It sums up belief.

But, if overdone,

it may lead to grief.

If it’s descriptive,

it might have some good.

If it’s prescriptive,

it very well could

be just slavery.

In either case, though,

it simply cannot

state all that is so,

or deny what’s not.

Gödel proved this thought

for the faith called math,

Showing there is not

proof for every truth.

The Faith? Not as much

certainty as math.

Nobody can touch

on the actual path

of that wildly unpredictable,

    energetic, active, creative,

            Holy Spirit

                who

                        goes

        wherever

He will.

If your thoughts of God

are confined to bounds,

don’t think it odd

when He blows them out of His way.

Copyright ©2018, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

Music to Fall Asleep With

Helen Jane Long can take me to Dreamland.

Not that she bores me — quite the contrary:

Every night, she paints over my mind and

touches up dull with brightness and airy

glimpses of places I've never yet seen,

pictures of a world that needs to be true.

Through her work, she tells me she has foreseen

that not all is lost, the world can renew.

I need that in Dreamland, to not get lost

in crumbling mazes built on shifting sand.

The music guides as the border is crossed,

when Helen Jane Long takes me to Dreamland.

Copyright ©2018, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.