A unique Species of Rose

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

[Update: 11/7/2020: I am often criticised for rarely using full stops at the end of stanzas; fair enough, but I see a poem (like life and time) as a continuum; it is meant to give the reader food for thought; for much the same reason, I often hyphenate words to bring them together, such as yesterday-today-tomorrow in the poem below. Hopefully, the reader will continue to consider the implications and relation to the poem’s theme/s long after they have forgotten the poem itself.] RT

In the closing scenes of a classic movie Gone with the Wind - based on a novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell - its heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, magnificently portrayed by Vivien Leigh, briefly considers confronting some uncomfortable home truths before backing out with the immortal words, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

How many of us, I wonder, have told ourselves much the same thing, and for how many of us has that changed much, if anything …?

Me? As guilty as sin … as are most if not all of us.

Meanwhile, while time passes and, for the most part, poor, misunderstood humanity persists in pausing at the brink of self-awareness … if only to excuse this or that course of action (or inaction) should it ever be called to account.  

Time, marking the days that come and go in our lives, may well be much the same for everyone; it is how we choose to nurture those days (or not, as the case may be) that makes them unique for each and every one of us, whoever and wherever. Raison d'être, too, is unique, to every individual even in shared circumstances like relationships; I dare say the world would be a better, kinder, place if only we were (all) to remember that, more often, especially those among us - in all walks of life - inclined to rush to judgement.

“It’s the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important…" 

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A UNIQUE SPECIES OF ROSE

Yesterday, I’d traverse deserts,

goaded by false images to kneel and drink

from oases of illusion

Yesterday, I’d climb leafy trees

browse the words of ancient philosophers

in passing clouds

Yesterday, I’d swim in the oceans,

bear witness to creatures choking to death

on human waste

Today, I’ll try to pass on something

of lessons learned by the mind-body-spirit

in poetry and prose

Today, I’ll try stirring cloth ears

all but glued to mobile phones into hearing

global warnings

Today, I’d do an Internet search

for answers to questions ever plaguing me,

but, alas, no wi-fi

Tomorrow, I’ll join other nomads

(still) misled by fake news, kneeling to drink

from oases of delusion

Tomorrow, I’ll ask the few trees left

how Earth Mother might have had us comply

had we but listened …?

Tomorrow, I’ll start thinking of ways

to prevent stereotypes slamming down the lid

of the box they put me in

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, live streams

of consciousness calling on Earth to reconcile

nature and human nature

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, last spotted

sailing under false colours where imagination

having settle for cast-offs

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, making hay

in the sunshine, world clocks winding us up

and down, up and down ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019