Past-Present-Future, Tales told by a Looking Glass OR Look and Listen

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

This is an early poem, written some years ago and only slightly revised some years later. 

Many thanks to those of you emailing to ask how I am getting on with compiling a new collection of poems. Progress remains slow but sure. Years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer having messed with my thought processes and want of a good night's sleep combined with the stresses we are all under due to the coronavirus pandemic ... well, they don't help. wry bardic grin But I plod on, not least because I have no choice but I genuinely enjoy writing up the blogs and compiling poetry collections, not only for the welcome distraction they provide, but because they encourage me to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life.

Now, while many of us may well look in a mirror and see beyond the image confronting us, how many of us, I wonder, actually go there?  It took me a good while to understand that being gay is an integral part of who I am and to deny it meant letting voices from my past dictate my future. Those same voices were already responsible for a serious mental breakdown (some 30+ years ago) and the road to recovery led to my deciding that it was high time I found a voice of my own and let it take me wherever …

"If you go through life only seeing what you want to see and hearing what you want to hear, much of it will simply pass you by...," thus commented my old English teacher, 'Jock' Rankin on the subject of poetry appreciation during a lesson in which the class was not responding very well to a poem by one of my favourite poets, Robert Frost, that he had read out to us.

Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on. – Robert Frost

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession. – Robert Frost

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, TALES TOLD BY A LOOKING GLASS or LOOK AND LISTEN

Looked in the mirror, and what did I see?

Tears where a smile should be;

walked into the mirror, and where did I go?

Back to a place I used to know;

put an ear to the mirror, and what did I hear?

Nothing I had not heard before

Looked around that place, and what did I see?

Dark shadows ganging up on me;

(nowhere to run, hide or expect sanctuary);

fear would be the death of me;

put an ear to my heart and what did I hear?

Nothing I had not heard before

Such love in my heart, and where did it go?

Out of the closet I used to know;

closet slammed behind me, what did I do?

Began making things right with you;

confronting a sorry world, what did we see?

Home truths in the grip of hypocrisy

Looking love in the eye, and what does it say?

‘Never let bigotry win the day…’;

walking out in the world, where do we go?

Wherever its kinder faces on show;

put an ear to the world and what do we hear?

Nothing we have not heard before

Copyright R. N. Taber 1982; 2015; 2020