Mind-Body-Spirit, Custom Made for Positive Thinking

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

 At the moment, as the C-19 coronavirus remains an active heat around the world, it cam be hard enough just to maintain everyday momentum! Even when we know we must move on, letting go is never easy.

The trick is to never to even try and let go altogether, but let the good memories drive us forward while taking care not to let the bad one’s hold us back; cease resisting, and let mind, body and spirit work towards the same positive end. Loved ones may die and friendships drift, but there is a consciousness in all of us that defaults to the brighter, kinder, side of life and human nature; that, too, may well fade, even transform into wishful thinking, yet a positive mind-body-spirit will always default to it and see us remembered for it by any who may have been touched by its mentorship.

Such is the human consciousness (“live” or posthumous) that it has moved humanity on since the beginning of time, and so it will continue while all we human beings draw breath; not least, it is the natural by-product of a common humanity.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, CUSTOM MADE FOR POSITIVE THINKING

I can feel the ground shake

beneath my feet, walking down a street,

hands in pockets, lost in thought,

wondering how on earth I got here,

what on earth I’m doing,

where I’m going, and why 

I should even care anymore?

(No one else does...)

Ground still shaking, I stop,

look, listen out, for - what, exactly?

Another burst water main

on the High Street?  Can hear car horns

blowing, sad kids screaming,

woman yelling at a cyclist for ignoring

a red light, man with a stick swearing

blue murder while attempting to negotiate

rites of passage among baby buggies,

market stallholders holding up bargains

for waving at indifferent faces,

pigeons squabbling assorted crumbs,

confetti for a wedding party going through

the motions

Sound, dead. Watery eyes;

left counting the seconds, one by one,

drowning in a busy pool

on a sunny afternoon, everybody keen

to do their own thing even if means

doing nothing about crises in the deep end,

learners getting into difficulties,

copper (playing lifeguard) with hands full

sorting out a fight, kids on the grab

running off, their shrill giggles coursing

the veins like a funny story

folks, whose lives are falling apart,

turn to in denial of the mind-body-spirit’s  

losing heart

Sounds, sights, rushing back,

send me reeling, ground hurting my feet,

shaking the body, scaring the heart,

tearing the lonely soul apart who staggers

against a brick wall, struggling

to recover balance, find bearings,

arguing with passions nurtured

and neglected, wounded and nursed;

“Stop messing with my head.

I’m okay, can get by without you.

No way, did you say?

What do you know, anyway?” (No more

than I do, for sure, or we’d not have ended up

where we are

Treading water, eyes and ears

half shut to the world, wanting to be part

of all this, that, theirs, mine and…

Ah, yes, ours, but no ‘ours’ any more

(no one and everyone to blame);

looking hell in the face, cue for engaging

with a positive thinking mindset

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Cue for a Positive Mindset'  in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]