An Affinity (of sorts) with Ghosts

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

We need to measure time in seconds, minutes, hours and days etc. to give our very existence a semblance of structure; similarly, we need language to communicate and try (at least) to make sense of it.  Time and again, though, I get the feeling we are working from false premises. Certainly, means do not necessarily justify ends which, in turn, as often as not, prove to be unfit for purpose. They may well satisfy some of us some of the time, but what about the rest of us and all that leftover time?

For a bigger picture than even the most detailed archives convey, we can but try to read between lines we so love to draw in sand (and the arts) if only to explore the spaces and establish an affinity of sorts with the immeasurable and indescribable…

The emotions invoked by death are immeasurable, not least because death itself remains beyond even the most creative imagination. Better, surely, if and when we are made to face the indescribable, to focus on we can describe and share by way of giving voice to and in part reliving the joys whose loss threatens us with free fall?

Memory helps, of course and is an infinite source of comfort as we recall happy  times spent with loved ones; a bitters-sweet comfort some might argue as there can be no adequate compensation for their loss and absence from our lives; for me, memories, dreams, daydreams and yes, poetry conjure up the spirit of a person which, albeit posthumous, is as much a part of me as it ever was ...

AN AFFINITY (OF SORTS) WITH GHOSTS

Where wintry days  

would have left us hanging

by dark memory’s thread,

returned to life in the flicker

of a sparrow’s eye seconds

before closing its Here-and-Now

on a world where death

attends creatures great and small

by way of their inclusion

with as select a company of ghosts

as inspire peace and love

Shadows, a gathering

of ghosts around weepy graves

littered with fading flowers,

a pooling of a-political policies

of positive thought to share

without fear or favour with eyes

to see, ears to listen,

lips able to move (no strings)

human hearts engaging

with aeons of having to learn

and unlearn, human minds

discovering and rediscovering,

shaping and reshaping,

working and (ever) reworking

parodies of human nature,

cartoons giving home truths a run

for their money

Earth Mother, lending us

an affinity with ghosts so voyagers

across time and space

may follow such tracks as mock

a humankind obsessed

with a Here-and-Now vulnerable

to its vanity’s attempts

at measuring the immeasurable

if only for sanity’s sake,

its worst fears last seen dissolving

into a rainbow, rain clouds

already parting to let the sun back in,

bring hope where there is despair,

give any heart wings to fly wherever,

share love and peace

among all the world’s winners and losers,

each to their own

I took poor sparrow

in my bare hands, clinging

to life in a sticky heat,

faint pulse denying death

its victory until nature

in its greater wisdom giving

the nod to its passing

an evergreen memory in us

of its winging free of time and hour

in every beat the heart skips

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2019