A Word to the Wise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Some parents, especially mothers, so love their friends' children to be the best of friends. Mine was anxious to know why I had all but ignored a friend's son - a fellow pupil at my primary school - during a recent visit to their house, not far from where we lived. I recall shrugging and putting it to her that the other boy and I had nothing in common, unlike our respective parents. "I don't dislike him," I tried to explain, "... so much as, well, he's so different from me. We like different things and have little if anything in common so...what's the point?" "It's up to you, of course," my mother conceded, "...but there's a lot we can learn from each other's differences. Unfortunately, it's our differences that make the world the way it is rather than any willingness to learn from them." I shrugged off those words at the time, but they came back to haunt me at bedtime and have haunted me ever since.
Needless to say, we became good mates, that boy and me and, yes, we did learn a lot from each other even if it did take us awhile to agree to differ about (many) things without getting personal. We were never best friends, but always enjoyed each other's company. Indeed, when I finally came out to family and friends as a gay man, he was one of the first to say it made no difference, even quoting yours truly in so far as to suggest that our differences do not make us different, only human.
A WORD TO THE WISE
Where did they all go,
days of childhood, where freedom
kept its word, any concerns
easily distracted by an enthusiasm
for new thing, new people
new avenues of thought less littered
with a narrow-mindedness
all too often found characterising
adulthood found wanting?
Where did they all go,
those days of emerging maturity
less fettered by the cares
and concerns of everyday survival.
still in the welcome grip
of curiosity, a sense of adventure,
an idealism tested
and found increasingly vulnerable
in as so-changing world?
Whatever happened
to halcyon days of early adulthood,
few leftover laurels
seen floating floods of opposition,
rejection and humiliation
touching base with needy conscience
and self-awareness, inciting
a rebel consciousness to explore ways
to make itself felt and heard?
Whatever happened
to that rebel in me, thinking to change
a world whose imperfections
are glossed over by a well-meaning
global consciousness, yet out
of touch with a common humanity
increasingly sensitive
to its much-divided politics and religions
all claiming to have answers?
No prescribed wisdom ever made less sense
than in any Here-and-Now
Copyright R. N. Taber 2019
[Note: This poem also appears on my gay-interest blog today.]
Some parents, especially mothers, so love their friends' children to be the best of friends. Mine was anxious to know why I had all but ignored a friend's son - a fellow pupil at my primary school - during a recent visit to their house, not far from where we lived. I recall shrugging and putting it to her that the other boy and I had nothing in common, unlike our respective parents. "I don't dislike him," I tried to explain, "... so much as, well, he's so different from me. We like different things and have little if anything in common so...what's the point?" "It's up to you, of course," my mother conceded, "...but there's a lot we can learn from each other's differences. Unfortunately, it's our differences that make the world the way it is rather than any willingness to learn from them." I shrugged off those words at the time, but they came back to haunt me at bedtime and have haunted me ever since.
Needless to say, we became good mates, that boy and me and, yes, we did learn a lot from each other even if it did take us awhile to agree to differ about (many) things without getting personal. We were never best friends, but always enjoyed each other's company. Indeed, when I finally came out to family and friends as a gay man, he was one of the first to say it made no difference, even quoting yours truly in so far as to suggest that our differences do not make us different, only human.
A WORD TO THE WISE
Where did they all go,
days of childhood, where freedom
kept its word, any concerns
easily distracted by an enthusiasm
for new thing, new people
new avenues of thought less littered
with a narrow-mindedness
all too often found characterising
adulthood found wanting?
Where did they all go,
those days of emerging maturity
less fettered by the cares
and concerns of everyday survival.
still in the welcome grip
of curiosity, a sense of adventure,
an idealism tested
and found increasingly vulnerable
in as so-changing world?
Whatever happened
to halcyon days of early adulthood,
few leftover laurels
seen floating floods of opposition,
rejection and humiliation
touching base with needy conscience
and self-awareness, inciting
a rebel consciousness to explore ways
to make itself felt and heard?
Whatever happened
to that rebel in me, thinking to change
a world whose imperfections
are glossed over by a well-meaning
global consciousness, yet out
of touch with a common humanity
increasingly sensitive
to its much-divided politics and religions
all claiming to have answers?
No prescribed wisdom ever made less sense
than in any Here-and-Now
Copyright R. N. Taber 2019
[Note: This poem also appears on my gay-interest blog today.]
Labels: formative years, friendship, global conscience, growing up, history, human nature, human spirit, life forces, love, maturity, mind-body-spirit, personal space, poetry, positive thinking, society, time
posted by R. N. Taber | 09:46
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