Where Kingfishers Fly

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

‘Marie’ has been in touch to say she and her family enjoyed my poetry reading on the 4^th plinth in Trafalgar Square back in July 2009 and would I post the link again please. 

So here it is, a link to as my contribution to Antony Gormley’s One and Other 24/7 ‘living sculpture’ project over 100 days of an English summer. The entire web-stream is archived in the British Library, but the link below will take you to my (very informal) hour on a (very high and a bit slippery) 4th plinth.

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the British Library archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18

Meanwhile...

Tip for the Day: Don’t spend a lifetime looking for the Bluebird if Happiness or the chances are you will never find it; lighten up, and let it come to you, and when it does, you’ll know it’s no myth. The human heart needs to find its voice and sing for love (if not a lover) to hear and come our way for it is inclined to turn a deaf ear to tears. Love comes in many shapes and assumes many guises; it may or may not linger long, but will remain a lasting inspiration.

  

WHERE KINGFISHERS FLY

Some say a Bluebird of Happiness

will swoop on loneliness

like an owl to prey, turn the foggiest day

into a blaze of spring sunshine,

negotiate mazes of a mind teetering

on madness, driven to despair

by a sickness of spirit, needing
to but spot one blue, fragile, wing,
and hear (even faintly) such sweet music
as only the Bluebird of Happiness

may ever bring, egging on our desire

for the simplest things...
like that first cold beer after harvest ends,

glimpse of a kingfisher’s tail

where the river bends, scent of roses

though autumn in the air

reminding of a fragrance of your hair

each time we share a dip,

a gladness of rainbows lending more

than light to your eyes,

along your nose, upon your lips,

(where I’ll brush mine),

tonguing your ear lobe, seeing to it

that love’s heat moulds us

into an image of lasting beauty

Bluebird of Happiness, circling our globe,

looking out for us...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the original as it appears in 1st eds. of The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.] 

The Third Eye is still in print. UK readers can obtain from any bookshop or directly from me; the latter also applies to overseas readers. UK readers may also find all or some of my titles listed in their local public library catalogue.