Rites of Passage or Overkill?

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

Life, death, it’s an eternal balancing act...for nature as well as for humankind.

It's down to us to maintain a reasonable life balance, but the rise in obesity among children as well as adults in western societies suggests we should, well....think again.

Let's not underestimate the power of the natural world either in compensating - in part, at least - for its own darker forces, of which humankind happens to be the worst. We may like to think we do as reasonable a job of compensating for its as well as our own way of life, but could it not be that climate change and endangering (if not eliminating) various species is a memo from Earth Mother, to each and every one of us, to...think again?

I am reminded a something a teacher told the class on my very last day at school. "Education is a learning curve. Try to leap before you have learnt, and you'll soon find yourself in deep shit." Everyone laughed but, of course, it is no laughing matter.

RITES OF PASSAGE OR OVERKILL?

On the crest of waves like surfers poised to head
for home in a swirl of raging sea

Nature re-birthing us, milk at the breast, feeding
the best traditions of human spirit

Dark forces, expecting Everyman to take a fall
against all evidence to the contrary

Everyman going it alone on a lion’s back asking
humanity to find it in itself to follow

Survival, greeting applause (hearts and minds)
if only for a sublime moment in time

History, inclined to lose its footing and leave it up

to the arts to restore a balance off sorts

Humankind, surfing a primeval wisdom, drafting
and redrafting pacts with its nemeses

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Balancing Act' in an anthology, Watch the Dawn, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]