On the Incredible Self-Empowerment of Naming Things

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

Like many men, I was terrified of getting prostate cancer in my later years. Shortly after my 65^th birthday, in the spring of 2011, I was, yes, diagnosed with prostate cancer and began hormone therapy.

Although I feel fine (most days) I have had some really weird dreams. The one on which this poem is based was so vivid that I got out of bed in the early hours and made a few notes before I could forget the whole thing. Sometimes I can get back into my dreams, but not on this occasion. As soon as my head hit the pillow again, I was fast asleep. If I had another dream, I don’t remember it.

I eventually woke up around 7:00 am in a cold sweat, vaguely disturbed yet also oddly elated. I felt as if I had ridden the gamut from youth to old age in a matter of seconds and been washed up on a sunny beach, my trusty white steed and me. (I love walking by the sea…)   

Above a louder and even more splendid than usual dawn chorus, I fancied someone was calling a name. In the cold light of day, I couldn’t hear what name, but somehow knew it wasn’t mine; not this time anyway. 

I sat up in bed and said aloud, ‘I have prostate cancer.’

Perhaps that is what the dream was all about, giving my ‘illness’ a name so I needn’t be afraid of it anymore?

Some hours later I caught a train and soon found myself walking by the sea in Brighton (East Sussex). I have done this so many times for so many years, yet those so familiar surroundings seemed like something out of a dream that day, and I felt so much the more reassured for it.

Naming our fears helps us confront them, all the better to get on with living without being distracted by a sense of constantly doing battle with an invisible enemy.

ON THE INCREDIBLE  SELF-EMPOWERMENT OF NAMING THINGS

I rode a pale horse to a castle of sand

gate left wide open,

drawbridge down, so carried on 

and banged at the door,

noise resounding like the weeping

of some tortured wretch

No one answered as I called a greeting

and the door groaned ajar;

not a friendly soul in sight, I entered

the Great Hall where a banquet

called for celebration of someone’s life

(alive or dead?)

Trestle tables were piled high with food

of every description,

yet no one ate from a single silver plate

or drank from silver goblets;

every throne-like chair remained emptier

than a beggar’s pockets

My horse bucked and reared as if sensing

a curse had been laid upon us;

I lost my grip and tumbled to a stone floor

as cold as an icy moat;

frantic, I heard the wretch let fly my name,

among waves of terror

I swam centuries before finally recovering

my surfboard, soon lay panting

at the gate of a sandcastle left wide open,

listening to that wretch weeping,

wondering who it it could be, how on earth 

they knew my name

Suddenly, I saw him and it was like looking
in a mirror, an expression of misery

I could not bear so leapt into the saddle, 
and rode out of the gate, its legend
(C-A-N-C-E-R) less scary for connecting me
with a positive mindset

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2013

[Note: Regular blog readers will know that I have revised this poem several times. So why post it before I am happy with it? I suspect it has to do with my being too close to the subject. Whatever, email feedback has both prompted and shaped any revisions, for which I am grateful, and can only hope this  latest will be the last. It only goes to show, I guess, that a poem is a 'live' art form in the sense that it is capable of metamorphosing as it passes from reader to reader and back to the poor poet who has to try and make sense of it all...]