Lines on the Accidental Life of a Raindrop

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

Another new poem today.

A regular reader has emailed to asks if I am not ‘slightly obsessed’ with rain imagery in some poems although he enjoys it, ‘given that it is one of those a positive life forces with which you also seem more than a little obsessed’. Well, I hope I don’t come across as ’obsessed’ in any of my poems.

Yes, I am fascinated by and empathise with various life forces; good, bad, ugly and sublime aspects of human nature … which I suspect applies to most of us if we are truly honest with ourselves. It is, after all, what the arts are all about as well as entertainment, the sciences, too, as well as looking for and finding answers; in the latter, science has an advantage since all the arts can too is make suggestions and offer alternatives to both entertain audiences as well as providing food for thought.

As a child, one of my elders and betters told me that art is the opposite of science; even at a young age, though, we had to agree to differ; in children and young people this is too often seen as being precocious. Different, yes, very different, but both are mentors to mind-body-spirit, each in their own way.

Much the sane can be said for nature and human nature; take a raindrop falling from the sky, catching both light and a child’s imagination, food for thought, indeed; where imagination entertains, invariably asking more questions than answering any …such observations may well not only stay with us  all our lives, taking us on a voyage of discovery that consciously or subconsciously  may well affect every move we make, every word we speak, who we are at any given time and whom we may yet become ...

No mean mentors, raindrops …

LINES ON THE ACCIDENTAL LIFE OF A RAINDROP

I watched a raindrop falling,

saw it splash on the ground without a sound,

and the silence, it was deafening,

killing the roar of traffic all around, leaving me

wondering who and where I am,

looking back at the heavens, asking questions,

needing reasons as to why

one minute I’m in a busy, noisy place, the next

travelling time and (personal) space

Silence, splashing my face

like thoughts that never seem to find a voice,

sailing through my head,

much like a summer breeze, every word unsaid

splashing on the backroads

of my mind, like raindrops fallen to the ground

only to conspire with others

to form puddles for children to make such faces in

as prompted by some native intuition

Years on, the boy I was that day,

a man now, but still watching that same rain fall

into much the same silence,

weirder now than ever for being so much rarer,

more likely to be swept along

by the rushing by of a Here-and-Now, little pause

to wonder where the time goes,

as likely breaking me for going with its flow had I not

listened to the silence, and never forgot

Old now, mind-body-spirit as full of pleasure as pain,

just for watching raindrops splashing Memory Lane

Copyright R. N Taber 2020