Profiling a Fair-Weather Friend

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

Today’s post-poem first appeared on the blog in 2013.

Seven years on, we are, all of us, having to cope with a nasty pandemic so are we all rooting for and looking out for each other, neighbours as well as friends and family, at the very least keeping in touch? Hopefully, we do what we can; what may not seem much to the casual observer may well mean more than words can say to someone in need.

Gay or straight, human nature is much the same worldwide. I dare say a good many of you can count at least one or two fair-weather friends of your own. Maybe they might even recognise themselves in what I have to say on the subject, although I doubt it.

Now, my mother rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and would put herself out for just about everyone. But I recall how she once referred to one of her closest friends as a vampire. I was curious. She told me that some people are only after what they can get out of a friendship; once they have taken their fill they will waste no time looking elsewhere. So why bother with them, I wanted to know? My mother shrugged. ‘When people need you, what choice do you have but to be there for them?’

True enough, when we moved and it meant making an effort to stay in touch, the friend soon dumped my mother for someone who was more convenient, and we never saw her again. I was angry on my mother’s behalf, but she took it in her stride. ‘Yes, some people can be very hurtful,’ she explained to boy Roger, but they can’t help it. For them, it comes with being human just as some of us were born to be hurt.’ She said this without a trace of bitterness although she was clearly upset.

I, too, have suffered my share of vampires. Not anymore. There comes a time when you have to escape their clutches or go on letting them hurt you. They are not horrible people, just thoughtless and self-centred. Neither are uncommon traits, but only human albeit aspects of human nature we much prefer to gloss over. 

Fortunately, though, I have also inherited my mother's spirit of endurance, especially while I have to deal with side effects of treatment for my prostate cancer. For now, at least, yours truly is putting himself first. Even so, if a good friend has a problem, its mine too, and I will help as and when I can, not least because another trait from which I try to take a leaf from my mother's book embraces yet another of her frequently repeated sayings; we reap what we sow in this world.

In recent years, I have experienced various health problems, not easy to deal with when you live on your own. Fortunately, too, though, I have some good friends who have rallied round and given much-needed support. The old saying is so true in so far as we never know who our true friends are until we really need them.

I am reminded of a much-quoted wry comment by the poet, Robert Frost: "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain."  Much the same can be said for some 'friends' too

This poem is a kenning.

PROFILING A FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND

I pose as an ally,

yet in time you will realise

I feed on

the milk of human kindness

and will drain it dry

any chance I get, though it

leave a trail

of hurt and pain I’ll never

turn to see

I speak as an ally,

yet in time you will realise

all I say

turns on all I am, and you

count for little

alongside my needy ego;

even though

I mean no harm, I will

wear you down

I know all the excuses

that spring to mind whenever

challenged to give

thought where thought is due,

but I have little for you,

for where would that leave me

but unhappiness,

one straw less to help

keep me afloat

A fair-weather friend, indeed, am I;

look for me not under a stormy sky

Copyright R N. Taber 2012; 2020

[Note: This poem has been slightly but significantly revised since first published under the title 'Being Human' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]