Making Peace with Mind-Body-Spirit

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

Love does not always work out for us as we had hoped, but it can take a long time to fade if, indeed, it ever does.

Now, it well may be that love is a win or lose affair, but for any loser it is very real at the time; mind-body-spirit needs must make its peace with it - and all those concerned -  if we can hope to move on, whatever our socio-cultural-religious background.

MAKING PEACE WITH MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

I could  feel it licking at my heels

with every step I took;

it cast a feisty shadow every time

I chanced a look,

making me feel like a missing page

in my own history book

One day I waited, let it catch me up

then moved in,

seized it by the scruff of the neck,

and demanded it explain;

it wrestled me to the ground, left me

writhing in pain

I staggered after summer, still reeling

from its blow,

grabbed it by the hand, insisted I had

a right to know;

it laughed in my face, warned me not

to follow, or else...

Ah, but follow I did, down blind alleys

into a shady corner;

we glared at each other, sworn enemies

(forever...?)

but finally trapping jealousy, my shadow,

and love, my stalker

It was now or never. Grateful for a choice,

we made our peace,

and time since has been more than kind

to us. Though long ago,

that summer’s rogue flames still

a timely warning...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2019

[Note: A slightly different version of this poem appears under the title 'Making Peace with Love'  in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]