Love, a Saving Grace

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

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix

“Love recognises no barriers; it jumps hurdles, leaps fences [and] penetrates walls - to arrive at its destination full of hope.” - Maya Angelou

“Where there is love, there is life.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality.” – Emily Dickinson

“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved, we can never lose, for all that we loved deeply becomes a part of us.” – Helen Keller

Now, a group of friends in a pub were toasting the late Queen Elizabeth II. I overheard an observer’s caustic comment: “Huh! As if anyone’s death is an excuse for celebration…!” to which their companion responded: “If those left behind don’t celebrate a life that’s been lived and give thanks for their part in it, who will?” to which the other person’s lack of response said volumes, I thought, for the power of silence…

As we all know, love takes many shapes and forms; whatever, its life force in us never dies, gifted as it is to the heart-and-soul.

Nor, I put it to you, is love in one shape or form any the less relevant a life force than another; its inspiration is immeasurable. It is why, perhaps, I think of myself as a Pantheist rather than subscribe  to any conventional religion, whose approaches to love invariably seem to me as more dogma-based than humanitarian. For example, the daughter of the late Desmond Tutu has reportedly been prohibited by the Church of England from leading her godfather's funeral because she is gay, married to a woman.  

LOVE, A SAVING GRACE 

There is a rustling of leaves
in the woods where I’d tread wearily
back bent from carrying
a load, daily, times when I’d long
to escape negative forces
ever closing in on me as if intent
on bringing me down 
under the weight of fears that cannot speak
for thinking of me as weak

Weak, yes, for missing you,
yet stronger, too, for your loving me,
no matter where you are
or where I may be in a world blessed
with love in it enough
to inspire all mind-body-spirit,
even in the absence 
of those upon whom we can always depend,
our own world-without-end

No words can begin to express 
feelings empowering me with such love 
and peace as will see us
survive the worst either skies above
or earth beneath may bring
to bear on You-Me-Us by way of wiles
with which any darker elements
of nature and human nature are only too familiar,
yet be sure they back a loser

Though life, at times, seem a trial and tribulation,
trust the power of love, a sure salvation 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022