Regular
readers will know I have prostate cancer and have been receiving hormone
therapy. I am
trying to take it all in my stride. Think positive, Taber, I keep telling
myself, and urge anyone in the same or similar circumstances to do the same.
The body
as well as mind and spirit need to stay strong if they are to defeat any
intruders that present a threat. Whatever happens, why deny ourselves the
satisfaction of putting up a good fight? Letting things (or people) get us down
only makes a bad situation worse.
Few if
any of us can say, hand on heart, that we never have ‘bad’ days. It is a
challenge to get through as least scarred as possible by problems, crises,
disappointments, nasty shocks and/or scary happenings...whatever.
Me, I
take my cue from nature. Mind you, that’s after taking several long, slow, deep
breaths and counting to ten....
IN PRAISE
OF PERENNIALS or SURVIVORS, MAKING HISTORY
I am the
spirit of the wind
writing
poems for trees, turning leaves
just as
humankind turns select pages
of
history, Creation taking imagination
to its
heart and turning it
into a
religion, nurturing growth
independent
of home truths
daring to
question how best to raise
born
again geraniums
I am the
spirit of the wind,
no sooner
rocking a baby in its cradle
and
composing a lullaby than pitting
sailors
against moody waves as fickle
as the Holy See towards gay
and transgender folks standing
up
for love and peace, re-asserting
that common body, mind, and spirit
aspiring to enlightenment
I am the
spirit of the wind
treating
the eagle and the dove
with
equal favour or cruelty,
as Earth
Mother has demonstrated
since
Creation took imagination
to its
heart and turned it into a religion,
stunting
growth, leaving home truths
so vulnerable
to decay in the thick
of a
long, weepy, autumn
Perennials,
like ghosts in the wind,
templates
for humankind…
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2014
[Note: An
earlier version of this poem appears in On the
Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]