http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Nature may be fickle, but so is human nature; the chances are whoever
takes the last donkey ride will look around and see a coastline that’s nowhere
near as sound or green as we see now or may have done centuries ago; even the
sea is losing its wildlife to a polluted modernity.
Humankind may we rail against
nature where it wreaks havoc and tragedy, the greater irony being that, in our
desperation to harness and make it serve our own ends, there is really little
to choose between the two.
Most if not all we human beings are
vain enough to think we deserve priority over the natural world. Could it be,
though, that Earth Mother has other ideas?
THE LAST
DONKEY RIDE
Time and
again you have passed me by,
turned a
cloth ear to cries from a heart
begging its release or at least some relief
from such
pain as only they know
who roam the shores of life asking Why?"
In spite
of those willing to lend a hand
where the
need is greatest, you deny
ignore, the rhetoric of discretion being
much the
better part of valour
So weary
am I of being taken for a ride,
on wings
of a prayer or bored donkeys
at the
seaside reassuring children
how sand
shells tell tales of a golden age
not yet
spent … where the sea is as safe
as the
sky is blue, grass is green and corn
grows
high, hopes for world peace
alive and well
if but sailing on driftwood
among time’s uneasy
swell
How long
can it last, me doing my best
for kith and kin, you abandoning us
to empty
words, promises of better days,
world left railing against humankind’s
inhumanity,
sure to get the better of me
without
even a native dignity to cover
my
blushes as they strip me bare, caring
little more
in their naivety for my decline
than our mutual salvation?
Hear me, your Earth Mother in distress,
ye who engineer the Politics of Progress
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]
This collection is still in print, but only on sale
in the UK. All readers, including any
outside the UK, can obtain (signed) copies direct from me at a generous blogger
discount on [retail price + shipping]. Enquiries to: rogertab@aol.com
with ‘Poetry collection’ or ‘Blog reader’ in the subject field.