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.

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Sunlight on a Country Churchyard OR Memo from Apollo

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

Another new poem today, just when I didn’t think I had another poem in me … and not for the first time either.

The coronavirus has been with us for months now and there are signs Covid-19 that the stress is taking its toll on everyone. Lately, I have heard the following statements from different people along the lines that “I really can’t take any more …” and “I sometimes wake up in the morning and wish I was dead …”  I know the feeling, I really do; I will be 75 later this year, live alone and hormone therapy for my prostate cancer affects my thought processes as well as my memory with the effect that, among other things, I panic easily.

A few months ago, my best friend Graham and I visited a certain village in Essex for the first time; it is a charming place. I was feeling tired and low at the time, but the village itself manifested such a delightful atmosphere that it cheered me immensely. We needed to take a footpath through the local churchyard; a whispering in the trees could easily have been voices of the dead urging me to be glad just to be alive and make the most of each day as it comes.

I had been feeling low, Suddenly, I felt altogether different, mood lifting and various life forces (including creative forces) coming into play; all mind-body-spirit, regenerating.

Needless to say, we have returned to the same village several times since.

That is how I came to write the poem; hopefully readers will take heart from it, as I did even as I was writing it; I was back in the village, far away from that dark place the coronavirus had dumped me in.



SUNLIGHT ON A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD or MEMO FROM APOLLO

Summoned by a breeze
to enter a country churchyard
while simply passing by;
pausing for thought, agreeing to comply
without quite knowing why,
yet sensing an urgency, pounding
at all sense and sensibility
as if some human spirit had chosen me
to set it free

Following feisty leaves
fallen from proud oaks forming
a Guard of Honour
on either side of a gravel path from gate
to church door,
urged by whisperings I cannot explain
to take a right turn,
wander among the graves
until (finally) called upon to stop, look, listen
and pay attention

My eyes, they are drawn
to a headstone nearby, its wording
ravaged by time,
yet I can just make out dates below a name
and parts of a poem
more critical of than favouring a person
Death dared presume
to steal away a good few years before their time,
so reads the poem

Highlighted by brilliant rays
of sunshine chasing dark clouds above,
the poem is as if rewritten
all words (and meaning) made clear and plain
to a certain someone
grown as war weary of life as with time,
death almost welcome
Apollo now whispering in my ear, “Rise and Shine”
for the grave is mine

In a blaze of light, love and glory
Apollo goes on his way, as I awake at dawn
from a hazy, crazy dream,
no less scary than beautiful, as meant to frighten
as reassure, enlighten
by way of a mind-body-spirit not yet given
its all, to why no time
like the Here-and Now to enter nature’s own view,
nurture a whole life through

I reached up for my diary on an oaken bedside shelf
and wrote, “Lost and Found, one true self … “

Copyright R.N. Taber 2020





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