http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
As I only
posted The Challenge here in
February, I am repeating another ‘cloud’ poem that has not appeared on the blog
since 2010.
Today is
National Poetry Day here in the UK. Here’s hoping that if you love clouds even
half as much as I do, you will enjoy these poems…
POEMS BY
PASSING CLOUDS
Some
songs in the wind
only the
trees ever hear
and even
beasts and birds
never
learn the words,
can but
live by the descant
of hungry
young in spring,
butterfly
wings in summer,
falling
leaves in autumn winds
bin bag
puppies in winter
Some
songs in the wind
only the
trees ever hear,
no matter
that humankind
imposes
its own lyrics
(poor
carbon copies passing
for
popular reflections in
some
subway busker’s eye)
sure to
become global classics
since
they make people cry
Some
songs in the wind
only the
trees ever hear,
will
never let on they know
or beast
and bird give up
on a
world that humankind
likes to
make out it knows
but dare
not face the wind
with its, oh, so pathetic untruths,
lyrics
sure to blow the mind
There’s a
song in the wind
only the
trees ever hear
about
nature’s secret ways;
life,
death, misadventure,
why it’s
the good die young
more
often than not, while
the old
pressure the rest of us
not to
forget long-ago, kinder days
but take
a leaf from the trees
There’s a
song in every tree
running
rings around history
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010. 2012
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; slightly rev. 7/19]
THE
CHALLENGE
There
is a bridge between clouds
where
we pause
who
ponder on the purpose
on
living just to die,
where
the spirit unfulfilled,
the
heart strayed
across
certain boundaries society
has
imposed (conventions)
so
much the better to disguise
its
worst intentions
There
is a bridge between clouds
where
we pause
who
ask why the world below
has
let us down…or did we
let
ourselves and each other down
in
the end
for
never ceasing to demand more
than
our fair share
of
whatever peace and love
to
be found there?
There
is a bridge between clouds
where
we’ll wait
our
turn to cross…or be left
wishing
deeds undone,
words
unsaid, lies left creeping
under
the tongue,
never
to see the cold light of a day
when
we must answer
to
all its invidious shadows
may
have heard us say
We
can but cross, we children of Earth,
rise
to the challenge of life over death
Copyright
R. N. Taber 1984; 2010
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