A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

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Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Inspiratonal

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

I love to watch and hear birds. For me, though, (yes, even after the skylark) the robin has to be the most inspirational.

Most if not all of us of us discover at some time or another that parting is, indeed, a sweet sorrow; the sweeter for happy memories that continue to sustain us.

I first read this poem by Emily Dickinson while reading English and American Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury way back in 1971; it has been one of my favourite poems ever since, also inspiring some of my own, not least the one below.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.” 

Emily Dickinson


INSPIRATIONAL

In a field of snow, I thought I saw
red berries on the branches of a tree,
but homing in, I discovered
it was but the breast of a lone robin
calling out to me

Robin, living in the hope of spring,
where love grows in a field of dreams,
though snow lay on the ground,
Earth Mother’s way of preserving
any kinder options

I stumbled, watching the robin fly
all but blindly, nor was I even looking
for hope to kindle my soul;
you took that with you when you left
along with spring

How my legs found the will to move
I can only guess was to honour the bird
as it returned, its bitter-sweet song
at a twilight in shreds for winter’s claws,
the loneliest ever heard

It was then you put your hand in mine,
and I lay my weary head on your shoulder,
as against all odds we staggered home
together, just as we had sworn ever to stay
through growing older

At the door of our house, we parted,
a glorious light in your eyes like a rainbow
among my tears you wiped dry
with the same hand that still wore my ring,
a guiding light in the snow

I thought I heard you speak my name
then saw it was but the wings of my robin
vanishing where yet I dare not go
but would, in time, just as those same tears
had followed your coffin

If a robin can see the cruelty of winter through,
be sure we lovers, though parted, can too

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'The Robin' in On the Battlefields of Love by  R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]

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