An Inspired Storytelling

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

This poem/post is from my gay-interest blog archives for February 2016

Regular readers will know how I love wandering along the seashore at any time of year, especially where I can travel through time and space to relive and enjoy happy memories.

When I was a boy, and as a teenager, I would listen to sea shells and hear things no one else ever told me, reassurance I would not find at home or school as I struggled to come to terms with life, love and an awakening homosexuality. 

It was a habit that would never leave me and one I enjoy to this day.  Now, of course, I am growing old, although I suspect the need for reassurance is rarely far away for any of us.

AN INSPIRED STORYTELLING

A collector’s prize seashell,

pretty on the outside, empty within

but for nature’s restless swell,

warning the world of its potential

for ruin…

I came, listening intently

to the shell’s graphic storytelling,

a fast-growing empathy...

with twilight’s tides swirling

on the eye, magical tales

about everyday lives on the sea

as brave as Odysseus of old nor less

every one, a hero than he

Stirred by the sheer presence

of gay folks negotiating life’s tides

come storms or whatever forces

may see us to harbour or our graves,

I replaced the shell, oh, so gently

for others to find, hear all it has to say

on living life to the full, proudly, echoes 
ringing in my ears to this day

Heart lost, now navigating

its tides’ rise and fall, no empty shell

but fuller, bolder, for hearing tell

how nature defines and redefines us, 

one and all…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2019

[Note: This poem a revised version of a poem that appears as ‘Researching Seashells’ in  On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]