Ghosts, Touching Base

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2017.

Now, much if not most of what we do and say - for better or worse, good or ill - has consequences for ourselves and/or others, either directly or indirectly, now or later.

Whether we accept or deny our part in any such consequences - for whatever reasons - we have to live with both reasons and consequences. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what we may have said or done or chosen not to say or do, as the case may be; since saying and/or doing nothing can have consequences of no less significance than being actively (or even passively) involved in a particular chain of events,.

Whatever, we are left with clear choices; accept responsibility, deny responsibility, lay it at someone else’s door altogether or delude ourselves that we are absolved of any blame (where any might be attached) if only because we could not possibly have foreseen how certain events, thus triggered, might unravel, especially  given the unpredictability of human nature.

Ah, yes, human nature …  a weak yet probably the more convincing of all excuses for our own shortcomings, especially with regard to certain perceptive qualities we like to think of as an acquired wisdom and are therefore reluctant to admit we may have been misguided, not to mention downright wrong.

A colleague once commented on there being no point in dwelling on the graver mistakes we make as we go through life, how ‘The only thing to do is kill them stone dead and move on...’ - which has to be one of the best descriptions I’ve yet to hear of a posthumous consciousness inhabited by ghosts likely to haunt its owner evermore. Yes, we can (hopefully) learn from our mistakes and try to make some redress for them. At the same time, they are kin to those proverbial sleeping dogs, likely to wake and disturb even the most carefully constructed comfort zone at any time … never more so than now, when everyone is not only stressed out by the Covid-19 pandemic, but degrees of self-isolation may well leave us with time on our hands, time to mull over a past  which for most of us includes regrets of one kind or another.

We can – even in these testing times - but do our best to stay positive, look forward, and keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. (Never easy, but worth every heartbeat.)

GHOSTS, TOUCHING BASE 

Now and then,

a ghost searches archives

of the human spirit

for mixed feelings to explore

and touch base

with a mind-body ethos

imaging a finger tip

pricked by thorns on a rose

drawing blood

Now and then

ghosts gather to consult

with each other

about the best ways to rectify

errors of judgement,

bring subsequent wrongs

to the attention  

of any directly (or indirectly)

feeding on them

Now and then,

a ghost will reason a need

to come clean

about such misdemeanours

as least intended

to result in hauntings

of the worst kind

for want of a broader (kinder)

take on life

Now and then,

a ghost will home in on us,

confront us

with such past-present-future

leftovers of time

as buried alive in the heart

by a seventh sense

naming names, hearing voices,

calling us out

As for what choices

we may or may well not act on

by way of an answer,

to each of us much the same 

finding a way to let ghosts

rest in peace no matter the cost

or disown Conscience,

block access to its archives 

once and for all ...?

Let the human ego

reinvent itself as and when it may,

it cannot unsay

what’s said or undo what’s done,

least of all rewrite

archives comprising life any choices

and consequences

pertaining to a least favourable

self-portraiture

Human nature

demands things left unsaid, undone,

than let the worst in us

its gamut run until the best in us

left as undervalued

as good intentions casting shadows,

spreading further,

and lasting longer for being left 

open to question

Ghosts, left to try and satisfy a human spirit

(still) assailed by self-doubt

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020