Riders of the Watch

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

Today's poem has not appeared on the blog since 2007, and I have since revised it; the original version also appeared in a Drifting Thoughts, Poetry Today (Forward Press), 2000.

I recall once walking along the water’s edge in the moonlight. I was very unhappy. I saw no point in continuing the battle of wits between head and heart. Yet, the feisty beauty of a summer night touched whatever it is in us we like to call ‘soul’ and instead of lamenting an ending, I began to anticipate a new beginning...

(Photo taken from the Internet)

RIDERS OF THE WATCH

Moon shadows,

riding white horses across a vast rippling plain

of dark despair;

a dashing of hooves,

indelible imprint on what passes

for the soul

Ghost riders, all deceit and lies,

shivering, shimmering, desperately willing us

to run...

Oh, but where?

Stripped bare, a lifetime's audacity;

time to cast off the trappings and pretty wrappings

of integrity;

Waves, a crashing ovation

for giving reason its marching orders, joining

the heart’s accomplices

Ghost riders, all deceit and lies,

shivering, shimmering, desperately willing us

to run...

Regeneration

Moon shadows, a force for salvation

among the flotsam and jetsam of human frailty

left for us beachcombers

to spot and salvage

what dreams we can (if at nature’s caprice)

without losing face

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000]