My Mentor is a Tree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Today’ poem is not strictly autobiographical, but the story it tells is one to which I could only too easily relate when told me by a friend many years ago; apart from having taken some poetic license, I tell it here much as it was told to me then.
“Courage is fire, bullying is smoke.” Benjamin Disraeli
There is no shame in asking for help. Nor is it ‘grassing’ to expose a bully, just common sense. You might even be doing them a favour; anyone shown the error of their ways stands a good chance of becoming a better person.
It
is not only children who get bullied, of course. Here in the UK, a National Bullying
Helpline offers help and advice regarding bullying in the workplace,
bullying at school and online harassment; details online.
A local park,
solitary tree
child looking up
who should be
at school;
Tall, grown old,
branches
reaching out by way
of expressing
mixed feelings
Small and sad, schoolboy
crying over a
family photograph,
takes a penknife
to scratch a tell-tale
heart
on rough bark,
rain clouds closing in,
world growing dark
Tree submits - no
defence
against human nature
when all’s
said and done;
Child climbs,
terra out mind,
bully-fear soon
starting to fall away
like autumn
A hovering skylark
lets out a cry
to chicks-in-the
nest making ready
to fly...
Tears for Mum,
Dad, and pal
teddy bear as
well, but ready to leap
into freefall
Earth Mother
whispers in an ear,
“Look! Beyond a
runny nose, a way
to live, FREE
of bully-fear.
Tell someone,
then see the rats,
how they do run,
their turn...
So, I did just
that, found a voice
to tell family and
school, bullies outed
and humiliated,
all inhumanity but
heading for a fall
once mind-body-spirit reasons ways to get
the better of it.
It’s still there,
the tree. Sometimes,
I revisit,
whenever alien forces dragging
me down;
Sometimes, too, a skylark
joins us,
with a peace song
for all nature’s children
of whom I’m one
Copyright R. N.
Taber 1998; 2021
[Note:
The origin of this poem is ‘Heaven Can Wait’ that I wrote in 1998 and which appears
in my first collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly
Books, 2001; it would be incorrect to call it a ‘revised’ version as I have
made substantial changes, so have chosen not to use the same title.] RT
Labels: bullying, fear, global consciousness, human nature, human spirit, life forces, love, naure, peer pressure, personal space, poetry, positive thinking, school, self-awareness, self-confidence, society, workplace
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