Postscript to a Wintry Frost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem first appeared on the blog two years ago and has been requested my 'Marianne' for her partner 'Rose-Marie' and by a reader from Leeds in West Yorkshire who did not give a name (I never reveal screen names).

I am often accused of being whimsical in my poems. Well, yes, I do whimsy.

Many years ago in the course of a mental breakdown, I attempted suicide. Thankfully, I failed. It was a grim experience and I was ill for several years, but it put me on a learning curve and gave me a new lease and appreciation of life.

POSTSCRIPT TO A WINTRY FROST

Early one morning in a winter frost
I walked to the Gates of Death
where so many have gone whom
I have loved and lost;
frozen flowers like miniature statues
lined the winding path I took;
I felt as if I were weaving my way
out of a storybook;
as a weepy sun rose higher in the sky
the statues came alive,
Earth Mother’s daily rallying call
reassuring us of her love

By now it had passed, the winter frost,
and I arrived at the Gates of Love
where so many have gone whom
I have loved and lost;
the gate, it flew open and showed me
a world beyond imaginings,
of peace and beauty everywhere,
the stuff of fairy tale endings;
I sighed, sensing I dare not linger long
where I hadn't yet reached
my journey’s end, though hopeful
for leaving a winter frost behind

Come a time we'll weather a winter frost
to the Gates of Death
and run a gamut of tears, see them open
to a new springtime of our years

[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books. 2010.]