In the Company of Dolphins

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

I have been asked to repeat the link  to my poetry reading on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square during the summer of 2009  as part of sculptor Antony Gormley's One and Other 'live sculpture' project. At first, I am shown being lowered by crane to the plinth and it is a good five minutes before the reading starts: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT

Meanwhile...

This short poem is about love and friendship and being there for loved ones and friends when they need us. .It is also about the lasting power of love and friendship.

There is a saying that what goes around comes around. We never know when it will be our turn to need help. People for whose idea of love and friendship is a one-way street (and there are plenty out there who expect us to be there for them but rarely if ever reciprocate!) would do well to remember that.

IN THE COMPANY OF DOLPHINS

I think of us at twilight’s gentler tears

on flowers in a pretty garden, glistening

like ocean spray in spring sunshine…

In the mind’s eye, I see survivors

clinging to the wreckage of a ship that

safe harbours will never greet again,

and dolphins come like guardian angels

to redeem a fate demanded by storm clouds

riding old Poseidon’s back

Now calmer seas, survivors washed up

on kinder shores, dolphins gone, task done.

Lost souls saved at godly whim?

I know not, can but let heart and mind

wish the company of dolphins to bring us

safely home…and though that be left

to this sad world’s darker poetry,

may love’s light shine through twilight’s

gentler tears on us

[From: Accomplice To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]