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].

Name:
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.

Wednesday, 29 April 2020

A Common Humanity, the Authorised Biography

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

Another new poem today, prompted by mind-body-spirit yesterday.

If any good can be said to come out of this awful COVID-19 it is that more of us have a sense of our all being in he same proverbial boat, regardless of any socio-cultural religious or, yes, sexual persuasion. Hopefully once the pandemic has passed, bigotry will have taken a bad fall if not disappeared altogether. Well, hope springs eternal ...

Across the world, people are struggling to cope various social restrictions, often at the same time as mourning loved ones who have passed away before their time. All due credit to humanity for its remarkable stoicism in the face of tough times.

A neighbour recently lost her mother. When I sympathised, she commented that "She is better off out of all this. I miss her terribly, of course, but her spirit will never leave me so I guess I just have to live with and be thankful for that." True, indeed. As I often try to reassure readers in my poems and blog preambles, love never dies.

Meanwhile, each in his and her own way, we can but continues to do battle with COVID-19 and trust that, when all's said and done, humanity is bigger than it, and will not only endure but survive whatever it throws at us.


A COMMON HUMANITY, THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY 

Yesterday, already past tense,
having left its mark on us some way
or another, more elements
of memory likely to find us engaging
with such varying shades
of light and dark, colour, absences
of colour, and encounters
with such black and white images as preferably
glossed over by way of face-savings

Today, a sense of making the best
of times, enduring the worst, ever urging
mind-body-spirit to reflect 
on kinder, happier climes, lend illusion
all the colours of a rainbow
making promises it may (or may not) keep,
self-appointed Guardian of Hope
in sickness and in health, half-awake and asleep,
feeding mind-body-spirit raison d'être

Tomorrow, left foraging for crumbs
of comfort or even enjoying a hearty meal
where the cap (or metaphor) fits,
feeding human arts, nature, and archives
conclusions that may (or may not)
be grounded in fact, fiction or a predilection
on the part of human nature
to enter into such mind games as engineered by Time,
and passed off as history or philosophy

Call me Past-Present-Future, providing the diversity
that puts the ‘u’ and ‘y’ in a common humanity


Copyright R N Taber, 2020

[Note: this poem also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today as feedback suggests a significant number of its reader "see no reason" to access this one.


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