A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

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Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Thursday, 7 August 2014

Extracts from a Treatise on Time


It was 1964 when I first heard Pete Seeger sing Where Have All The Flowers Gone?  I was 17 years-old and moved to tears. I told my mother, adding that I felt such a fool.

‘Never regret tears,’ she said. ‘Only fools never cry. It’s tears that oil the wheels of Time, and without Time there would be no way of carrying our memories to a safe place where we can access them whenever we feel the need…’

'That's daft,' I said.

'No, dear,' she said, 'that's history...'

Now I know better. As I grow old, I need to access my most precious memories; people, places, events that have had, and will always have,  a special place in my life. My mother also spoke of a posthumous consciousness we can access at will, and feel close to those we have loved and since passed away...

This poem is a villanelle:

EXTRACTS FROM A TREATISE ON TIME

Where time, it passes us on,
we, too, pass on in time 
like a flower, its season gone

No wintry world ever reborn
in love’s fair springtime
where time, it passes us on

Find peace on Earth forsworn,
(poetry forsaking rhyme)
like a flower, its season gone

Find all sacred songs written
(to give God a name…?)
where time, it passes us on

On its battlefields dearly won,
glory buries its crime
like a flower, its season gone

Whether molehill or mountain,
may the human spirit climb
where time, it passes us on...
like a flower, its season gone

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008; 2014

[Note: Regular readers may recall that an earlier version of this poem first appeared on the blog under the title 'An Autobiography of Time'.]

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