[Update March 14 2018] In the death of Professor Stephen Hawking announced today, the world has just lost a great and truly inspiring man.]
Now, although
I have every confidence in the hospital team treating me for the prostate
cancer with hormone therapy, I have days when I could feel myself slipping into
a depression about it all. Having taught myself to recognise and acknowledge
the signs, I knew I had to act or free fall into the abyss. [The abyss and I
are old adversaries, but I like to think I can get the upper hand now so long
as I don’t let myself go into denial.]
From time to time, I have a really BAD day and (with some difficulty I have to say) need to think myself into
philosophical mode; from there, it is only a few metaphorical steps into
positive thinking mode, and from there but a hop, skip and a jump into
writing mode. Today’s poem is the result of a form of self-help therapy much
practised by yours truly.
What is
‘now’? It is always ‘now’. Now is eternal, like time and space. We are ‘Now’.
We are from ‘Now’. We are heading for ‘Now’.
What, I
wonder, what will our ‘Now’ be like once we arrive at journey’s end, shaped by
the choices we have made or left unmade? Whatever, we can but try to arrive at
a ‘Now’ that offers a better, kinder existence than its history has shown us (or
it) far.
DOORS or T-I-M-E, EXITS AND ENTRANCES
Whenever
asked where I come from,
I answer,
my mother’s womb,
yet a
sense, too, of being somewhere
distant,
unknown, as if crossing
mythical
territories of time and space
just to
get there
When asked
about my goals in life,
(prompted
by what motivation?)
I have confess
I’ve never been sure
which
doors are left ajar for us
just to take
a peep, our choice, whether
or not we
enter.
Some
people have made accusations
against
me, suggesting I’m sitting
on some
rickety, metaphorical fence
rather
than face what I might find
should I
jump off, explore the potential
for mind and
spirit
Stung by
the rebuke, I flung them open,
these
doors left ajar to tease me,
daring me
try translating hieroglyphics
lining mother’s womb, luring me
into a vast
maze of corridors whose dust
will host
my tomb
I've asked
of my self where I come from
and it
answered, my mother’s womb,
invoking,
too, a sense of having been
somewhere
(very) distant, unknown,
crossing vast
territories of time and space
just to
get here
Now when
asked about goals in life,
(prompted
by what motivation?)
I have to
confess I’ve rarely been able
to decide
between doors left ajar
just for the
peeping and others intending
I should
enter
On womb, tomb,
and in-between doors,
find hieroglyphics
writing up
a (much
ghosted) autobiography of life
and death,
often taken for graffiti
on this
‘n’ that door slamming on us
if
(never) quite shut
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2013
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