Come, Springtime OR Let there be Light

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

A new reader has emailed to say, “… it’s all very well to wax poetically about hope, but when life takes a turn for the worse and there is no one to lend a helping hand, hope is inclined to fade like spring mist.” An appropriate analogy, if I may say so, given that once the mist fades, it is still springtime. 

Regular readers will know that I went into freefall some 40+ years ago and remained in the throes of a nervous breakdown for nearly four years. I did have some much-valued support from several people, and staring to write again proved very therapeutic, but I saw no future for myself, the chances of getting another job remote. I joined a local support group, which helped me re-learn how to connect with people; this, in turn, helped me recover a degree of self-confidence. 

Chance took me to a charity that helped people get back to work who, for whatever reason, considered themselves to be unemployable; within months, I was working again, albeit on a trial basis which later became permanent. 

They still haunt me, those years, and always will, but in a good way; they inspire me just as they have done throughout the pandemic and as I grow old(er). I am 75 now, and having to contend with various health issues that get me down sometimes. There are many people out there who are a LOT worse off than me, though, so I try take each day as it comes, just glad to be alive even if my quality of life is less than I would like. 

A teacher at my old school some 60+ years ago once commented that our limitations should not be seen as restricting us but as challenges, inspiring us to overcome them, each in his or her own time and way.

The blog archives are accessible from the right hand side of any blog page and ew readers are welcome to explore them; hopefully you will fine some poems  you like, bearing in mind the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln:

You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

COME, SPRINGTIME or LET THERE BE LIGHT

Once, darkness and cold,
as if winter had refused to surrender
to yet another spring;
with all the intensity of an impending doom,
it had me wandering
a maze of tunnels as lost and alone
as children waking at night, too scared even to cry,
too young to reason why 

Now, a glimmer of light
has me heading that way with a surge
of hope in my heart
offering all mind-body-spirit a potential lifeline,
reasons to dream
that had long since all but died, buried alive
under mixed emotions barely allowing room to move
or space to draw breath 

Yet, making slow progress,
every step as if my feet are unwilling
to chance arriving
at much the same awful place as had failed me
once already,
but for a yearning in me to see kinder heavens
smiling on us than have angry echoes of weepy ghosts
bringing us to our knees

Now, let there be light. Children of the Earth celebrating
the return of spring

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

[Note: In response to the reader who has just e-mailed me, no this is not a kenning; kennings comprise three stanzas of nine lines + a couplet; and, yes, this post-poem also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today.] RNT