First Destiny Called Poem by Kurt Philip Behm

Laid solid with words
the writers stone
A fortress was columned
my only real home

The poetry was safe there
it stammered and tried
As my feelings unbridled
from the outsiders lies

Each year added layers
to this home of the verse
My thoughts never silenced
or my feelings there terse

All that's needed to go there
…unfettered belief
All that's needed to know
is that time is the thief

My vision unshaken
from this chair with two wheels
The advice from the experts
"to wither and yield"

But my place more than sacred
an invincible throne
Independent of body
times seed to unsow

And the moment before
I take my last breath
I will enter forever
where before I had left

The trumpets will sound
as immortality calls
To that space then my refuge
the sum of it all

As the memories unreason
the facts storm again
But the tents of my solitude
keep out their wind

For generations that follow
and their children that ask
This place I now dwell in
for all hard and fast

Just believe in its message
and its fortune to change
Just believe in transcendence
with all things the same

Until the day that that final
trumpet may blow
And all that you've loved
is all there's to know

Your message then solid
as the door opens wide
And those moments you've gifted
to the heavens arrive

And the joy that you feel
thinking back on it all
From that place deep inside
—where first destiny called

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March,2015)