Engaging with History

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

Some of you may be interested to know that I read today's poem on You Tube and might care to tune in.I read the poem as a voice-over to views by friend Graham shot of Avebury Henge in Wiltshire while visiting his mum and stepdad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-qqOje4vY

If the link doesn’t work, go to my YouTube channel -  http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber  - click on ‘see all’ and look for ‘Engaging With History’:

There is something moving about any Henge site, more than a tangible sense of history, but a posthumous consciousness wherein we engage with whomsoever constructed it, how and why, although it all be shrouded in ancient rites carried out among the towering stones by ghosts trying to tell us something while we try to figure out what...

ENGAGING WITH HISTORY

I have stood at the Gates of History,
communing with nature as millions before me
will have done, wondering perhaps
as I do now, why time plays such tricks on us,
bringing us into the world,
investing us with the innocence of lambs
without a care, no shadowy fear
of what may lie ahead, only the joy of life
filling the senses to overspill,
letting us leave their mark if only to say
we were here

I have stood at the Gates of Time,
communing with Apollo as millions before me,
century upon century,
creating out of hopes and fears, monuments
like ancient stones
so those who come after will recognize
and understand how the burden
of humanity grows with time, never lightens,
but we must seize precious moments
pass on something of their enduring spirit
for all to share

I have stood in the House of Earth Mother
at the invitation of ghosts, to enjoy the live poetry
of a beautiful summer’s day,
breathe the fresh, fragrant air of country ways,
follow them to bygone days,
discover that for all Time’s heavy tread
has left muddy footprints,
the same clouds come together, a few frowns
among the smiles as they watch
the same petty antics of a singular humanity
in touch with its own mortality

I have stood dwarfed by Giants of Time
quick to reassure me that I should have no fear
of what I see and hear,
but let my senses go free and follow them
where they will...
nor expect to find the passages of history
dark and cold, but bright, warm,
and full of laughter, as careless a rapture
as of lambs in these fields,
left to a peace (of sorts) by modernity’s
shallow wisdom

So it was I came to run the gamut
of time and history, life and love, laughter
and, yes, even death...
rediscovered the joy of eternal innocence
that never dies, but only matures
like fine wine if we but let our senses
go free of the body’s cage,
dare embrace the mind’s every moving page,
soak up the sweeter smells of day
and night on country lane or city street
where centuries meet

I left in peace, still tracking Time’s footprints
in the grass

London: re Avebury Henge, Wiltshire, August 2011]

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011