Come Twilight's Sword

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

Some 30+ years ago, I had a severe nervous breakdown. Among other aspects of irrational behaviour I became preoccupied with the idea of dying, and deliberately overdosed on paracetamol. I was unconscious for 35 hours. I recovered consciousness only briefly, but long enough to make my way to my nearby GP’s surgery. I recall nothing else until waking up in hospital another 24 hours later. 

It was a good year or so before I was glad my suicide attempt failed; so deep was my depression that I had been unable to see so much as a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark passage at the time.

I will be forever grateful to a small but effective support network of friends and colleagues that saw me through that awful time.

The poem below was inspired by a recurring dream I’ve had since those dark days; it not only reinforces my faith in Earth Mother’s kinder side, but also makes me determined to avoid free falling into The Abyss a second time. It is particularly reassuring as I learn to contend with a low-medium level of prostate cancer.

COME TWILIGHT’S SWORD 

I was lying in my bed

when an angel came and said,

‘Won’t you come with me?’

No time to frame a word

under threat of twilight’s sword,

nor barely able to see

Scared, I shook my head,

but the angel laughed and said,

‘You must come with me.’

I explained I couldn’t leave,

loved ones tugging at my sleeve;

from the angel, no reprieve

Near Heaven, I looked back,

world on Man’s customized rack

crying out to me

Did the angel release my hand,

at nature’s, oh, so spirited demand

let its trees and poets go free?

I’ll never know, for I awoke;

behind dawn’s veil, a lark spoke,

‘Do your best for me.’

[From: Accomplices To Illusion By R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]