Marking time, Sapling, Waiting On Its Seasons

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

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2008 so I guess now is as good a time as any to give it a airing albeit a slightly revised version. 

I am in my late 60s now. Now and then I consider the discrepancy between what I have achieved and what I’d once hoped to achieve, and my heart sinks...until I consider various off-shoots of that ‘unfulfilled potential’ and then the tree doesn’t look half so bad after all.

MARKING TIME, SAPLING, WAITING ON ITS SEASONS

Youth, with dreamy eyes

and wind in the hair,

soaking up heaven’s store

of tears for cares

like leaves untimely fallen

on slim shoulders

Like a sapling in a breeze,

see it bend, never break;

watch leaves bud and grow;

now green, now red,

now gold for each mortal

breath it takes

Nor shall its season cease,

grown older, stronger,

a bold heart harbouring 

the finer seeds

of Creation for nature’s  

nurturing

Spirited tree, proud and free,

a living part of earth’s

finer tapestry, sheltering all

(no one’s enemy)

though they carve initials

on your body

Forever, tall and beautiful

in the mind’s eye;

where lashed to dark skies,

a freedom won

by egg cries sure to archive

its leafy passions

Potential in its prime, marking

time

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem  appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2004; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]