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.

Wednesday, 2 September 2020

Extracts from a Pantheist's Diary


Most if not all of us fear death, not least during a Here-and-Now during which the Covid-19 coronavirus continues to take its toll around the world; it is that ultimate unknown which even the bravest and most adventurous among us are loath to try and test. Try and test for what, exactly?  Our reward or punishment for … whatever? In what form, pray? Heaven, Hell, or (worse) nothing at all, no acknowledgement that we ever lived? 

If the beauty of religion is that it offers answers, the beauty of philosophy has to be that it opens up possibilities of which we are invited to take our pick.

It could be said that history is a continuing story-poem of nature and human nature, root and branch from birth to …what, death? Our death, yes, but we are, each and everyone of us, a part of that story-poem, all making a contribution for better, for worse.

Tales and poems take on a life of their own according to how they are read/ interpreted by the teller or reader; they don’t end once the telling or reading of them ends … but leave various impressions over which we mull and work through for ourselves over a lifetime, rarely aware that we are even doing so, playing a part – big or small – in how we develop as human beings in relation to both nature, human nature and our fellow human beings; love, love-hate, fear, egotism …few if any of us, are denied such felt-experiences. 

Such a continuing felt-experience perhaps, is - death - if only in our being assimilated into a Common Unknown, trusting such kindred mind-spirits as characterise human love, in all its kinder shapes and forms, to pass on what the body cannot …?

EXTRACTS FROM A PANTHEIST’S DIARY

I fear you Death,
and yet I fear you not at all;
the journey to Forever
will be sure to take me far
from the reality I have come
to love-hate-adore
into that world of silence
I much prefer, wherein feelings
speak louder than words,
among the pioneers,
and positive thinkers of times
when Naysayers
needs must concede a victory
(of sorts) to a creativity
and philosophy of arts, sciences,
seeking to play a part
in Change for the Better through
seasons of the human heart

The trail from life
to death is as likely to take
an eternity to follow
in the footmarks of history’s
great minds, kind hearts
and all those men and women
encouraging us to pass on
with the parts that make us human
generation to generation,
how the last word in an education
of mind-body-spirit,
bringing together all we learn
while passing through life
(as we know it)
is love, its sheer poetry alone
reconciling all nature
and human nature with an empathy
that’s an existential future

I fear you, Death, 
but as an Unknown, the spirit
of a poem living on
in such hearts and minds 
as may have read
between its lines, seen what a poet
is trying to say in words
that cannot hope to compete 
with the wisdom
of any mind-body-spirit
needing to make itself truly felt
so as to convey something
of that on which motivation feeds,
inspiration anxious
to catch falling stars, if only
for any who empathise
with 'live' fingers configuring an eternity
wherein their history lies...

Copyright R N. Taber 2020. 2021

[Note: This poem first appeared on the blog last year. I have only recently revised it in so far as adding the last stanza.] RNT 25/5/2021



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