A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Best (Free) Seats at the Opera

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

Reader ‘Sahira’ has kindly been in touch to say how much she especially enjoys my nature poems. Many thanks for that, encouragement always gratefully received. Sahira has also asked for more information about the Cheddar Gorge after viewing the videos posted on my You Tube Channel + poems: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

(Click on ‘browse videos’ and scroll to Cheddar Gorge clips 1, 2, and 3.)

More about the Cheddar Gorge on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Gorge

Meanwhile…

Today's poem has been significantly revised since its last appearance on the blog in March 2011 while (hopefully) giving the reader food for thought regarding our relationship with nature, for better or worse. We have not been kind to nature nor is nature always kind to us, yet together we make a good team. Could it be that we are not so different after all, but two sides of the same life-force?

BEST (FREE) SEATS AT THE OPERA 

Music in the air, timeless songs
we only ever hear
for listening out for birds, bees,
and summer showers
wherever tree-ushers gesture
mind-body-spirit takes its place
in the front row

Though humankind try to copy,
modify or destroy,
it can but fail to silence songs
Earth Mother teaches
her children from seedlings
(if never on time at rehearsals)
for the Opera of Life

Lights down, only Pan’s pipes
keeping us reflective
until the next act begins. puts us
through our paces,
gives imagination its head,
as per  humanity’s predilection
for performance art

Though we be deaf, blind, dumb,
the Spirit of Nature 
can be felt and passed on by all,
come the sun by day 
or the moon by night, if only
for treading footprints of live clay
left by dead poets

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2018


[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]



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