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.

Monday, 22 June 2020

Scenes from a Life

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

Today's poem  first appeared on the blog in 2012. Yes, I know I said I would only be writing up the blogs now and then while I am compiling a new collection, but I guess I can't keep away and several readers have emailed to say logging on to the blog helps them get their thoughts together, ready for whatever the day ahead may bring. My own thoughts are all over the place these days, and the new collection is proving harder that I anticipated, so continuing to write up the blogs does us both a favour. wry bardic grin

For many of us, our thoughts will be with the people of Reading today, and the savage attack by an   individual over the weekend resulting in three people, simply enjoying time in the sun with friends in a local park, losing their lives in what police are now saying appears to have been a terrorist-motivated attack. 

The death of a friend or loved-one is hard enough to bear, without its coming so unexpectedly and violently and our hearts go out to all those close to those who died and were injured in the attack, also anyone who witnessed, for whom it will always count among their darkest and most frightening memories. 

Love, though, never dies and will remain a source of comfort and inspiration all our lives; nor is that just the rhetoric of poetry, either, as I speak from personal experience.

Now, I don’t always want to talk to people when I am travelling. More often than not, I like to enjoy the scenery or just close my eyes and go wherever my thoughts take me. For example, take the London to Brighton train that I've caught on average several times a year for 50+ years; by the time the train arrives in Brighton or back in London, I'll have travelled the world over, and loved every minute of it. Having been all but housebound during the Covid-19 pandemic, I have travelled the world in mind-body-spirit, and to say it has helped me to stay hopeful and keep looking on the bright(er) side of life would be a gross understatement.

That’s life for you, mind over matter, and who’s to say mortality is so different?

Yes, people have had a free ticket to ride since the beginning of time when the only train to ride was the Imagination Express ...

SCENES FROM A LIFE 

Passing into spring,
pausing where streams of living water flow
and kingfishers reassure me
they know I am here,
whenever they can but catch glimpses of me 
beneath leafy skies

Rushing into summer,
pausing where living woodlands in full voice
sings songs of my childhood
as if to reassure me
it still has hold of my shirt collar
and will never let go

Rolling into autumn,
pausing where the last flowers still blooming
inspire the weariest traveller
with a passion for life;
better to have got away than settled
for armchair histrionics

Rumbling into winter,
anticipating the last long tunnel discouraging
us from entering, though nature
falling back on old tricks,
working new wonders at every turn
where we look for them

Copyright R N. Taber 2012

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