Engaging with Conjecture

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

I recently met up with a close friend for lunch in a church garden; it was a lovely, sunny afternoon and we were joined by assorted avian friends (mostly pigeons) hoping for such crumbs as we duly obliged. 

While chatting away, we’d sometimes address the birds directly; some would even seem to understand, if only in our imagination. Maybe they did understand, if not the words we spoke, the tone in which we spoken them? Who really knows what goes on in the head of any live creature, including human beings? It can only be pure conjecture, surely?

 

I put this to a psychiatrist once. To my surprise, he agreed, adding that it was not his job to know what goes on in patient’s heads, but to help them to know and thereby help themselves. “I’m trained to read signs, not to be a mind-reader,” he pointed out, “Before anyone can begin to deal with problems affecting their behaviour, they have to get to the root cause, rather like having to lift an invisible curtain they don’t even realise is there.  It’s my job to point patients towards it and help them find the wherewithal to lift the damn thing. Even then, it’s only a first step...”

 

A naturalist acquaintance once commented along similar lines about conjecture. We were observing a tortoise in his garden. “How does it decide which way to go?” I wanted to know.

 

“Natural instinct,” he said with quiet conviction.

 

“So how does that work?” I persisted.

 

“No one really knows for sure,” he chuckled, “... but we can learn a lot by observation of live creatures and their remains. Even so, all species are different and within any species there will always be individual differences. At the end of the day, even what a specialist learns is only conjecture, but as close to knowing as anyone can get.” 

It was s too complex a conversation for me, though, and I changed the subject...

 

ENGAGING WITH CONJECTURE

 

In a church garden,

two gay men engaging with nature

and human nature  

in such ways as its hosts would

deny us for our being

beyond both their ken or remit,

according to such dogma

as they would share as a ‘God-given’

insight to Heaven

 

Beneath leafy art forms

portraying dream-like cameos

of cloud shapes

and sun nymphs peering down

with watery eyes,

we ate our lunches, two old friends,

tossing breadcrumbs

now and then to birdlife come to share

precious moments there

 

Pigeons, various markings

and colouring, engaging with us;

avian and human,

birds of a feather come together,

truce understood,

a spirit of such caring and sharing,

as even divided species agree

on nurturing, if the going’s looking good

for credit and reward

 

Nearby, a crow has business

of its own with discarded food waste

in open litter bins,

deftly removing sandwich wrappings

and other crumb-potential,

scattering them across public gardens

for passers-by to deplore

such ‘litter-louts’ as never spare a thought

for the environment

 

Observing, though, how much

nature and human nature have in common,

for worse as well as better,

who’s to judge any species of creature

great or small for being

as they are, or any within the human race

made to feel outsiders

by any form socio-cultural-religious dogma

now and forever?

 

Such are ways to which life forms

are born, better (surely) to trust than see them

forsworn under duress,

reason the need any heart may protest

at being put to a test

it doesn’t even recognise as fit for purpose,

any more than do two gay men

in a church garden, engaging with local nature

and human conjecture? 

 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021 

[Note: This poem-post also  appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today.] RNT