Another Open Letter to Readers

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

Hello again, Everyone,

No poem again today as I am still unwell, but I don't have the coronavirus, either, so still able to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life.

I have enough poems to publish another three collections of mixed general and gay-interest poems over the next few years, so long as my prostate cancer allows me to stay alive 'n' kicking for at least that long. At the moment, though, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is not rising to the bait.

Hopefully, life will return to a semblance of normality by summer, and yours truly can get cracking on new as well as revised collections. In the meantime, like everyone else, I can but take each day as it comes and distract myself sufficiently to keep depression at bay. Life is hard at the moment for everyone, but for people living alone, as I do, it is taking more and more effort just to get though one Groundhog Day after another, not going far, not seeing friends, not taking much real pleasure in life; too many negatives and not enough positives there, so all the more reason to put a positive-thinking mindset to work and made damn sure it does a good job. Easier said than done, of course, so good luck to each and every one of us as far as that's concerned.

A reader emailed to say he though my poem Life-Forces, about grief was "tactless". Well, I am sorry if anyone read it that way; it is a poem about love, hope and renewal as much as anything else. 

Grief is a tough process to get through. Missing a loved-one who has passed away can be physically as well as emotionally painful. Our loved-ones, though, would not want us to suffer; for them as much as for ourselves, we have to get through the process of grief and emerge the stronger for it, not weaker. Happy memories cannot compensate for being with someone, yet love and its associated memories remain with us always, and we need to think of them as learning bricks upon which to build not only our physical but also emotional/ spiritual lives. 

In life, we meet all kinds of people, but it is having met those who affect us the more positively and deeply that makes our having lived at all worthwhile and give our lives meaning for so long as we continue to make good use of those learning-bricks they have been kind, loving, and generous enough to leave behind. 

Hopefully, when our own time comes to leave this world, we, in turn, will leave our share of building bricks with which others can build once grief has had its say and shed its tears. 

Let's face it, the alternative is dwelling on loss to the extent that quality of life descends close or even into freefall, as happened to me after my mother died, and it was several years before her love brought me to my senses.

Back soon, folks, and many thanks for dropping by, always much appreciated.

Take care and be sure to nurture a positive-thinking mindset'

Hugs,

Roger