Endeavour

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

“I endeavour to make the most of everything.” – Victoria Woodhull

Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

 “People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure is not what you look at, but what you see.”  - David Attenborough

Now, overheard in a local supermarket recently:

1st speaker: “I look at the world we live in these days and it’s so ugly, I sometimes wonder why I bother getting up.”

2nd speaker: Sunshine and birdsong are enough to get me out of bed. They fill me with hope, in much the same way as art sometime can. And hope has such a beautiful voice.”

1st speaker: (scoffs) Huh!

How dare anyone scoff at nature, the poet in me raged. None so blind as will not see. An ugly dog looked up at me as is to reply with such beautiful eyes that I gave myself a good telling-off for initially thinking it ugly. Indeed, I smiled and said “Hello, doggie” to which it wagged a friendly tail and his owner, a complete stranger, gave me a grin that clearly said, “Too right, he’s a beauty…” 

Nor is it only beauty that is in the eye of the beholder; surely, nature has lessons to teach us also, if only we care to let mind-body-spirit watch, listen - and learn...?

ENDEAVOUR

I was like a thwarted stream,
despairing of ever flowing free again,
being at one with a world fairer
by far than it may seem at first glance - before
heavy rains came, left me a prisoner
of myself, time passing through a sad heart
like the trickle of a stream
struggling to find a way past a sudden rockfall,
answer its main flow’s frantic call

Progress, slow but sure, a familiar,
voice in my ear urging I find a way to ease
ts pain, let it be whole once again,
as nature first intended before blue skies
filled with angry clouds
bent on letting rip with a heavy rain,
as if expressing tears of pain  
and disappointment in nature and human nature
increasingly at odds with each other

South wind, strong enough to shift
a few unsettled rocks, enough to let a trickle
run free, eventually reunite 
with its main flow, not quite as vibrantly
as before, but time yet to prove
worthy of serving the needs of natural
and human worlds, 
whither they may yet go, as driven by life forces
plotting their courses over centuries

Heavy rains, they come again, again,
eventually make way for clearer skies, if less so
than we might wish, distracting
ourselves by having singing and dancing chase
dark fears away as haunt 
such dreams as have us negotiating streams
of consciousness, no less vulnerable 
to rockfalls than any other or less able to negotiate,
nature and human nature, ready or not 

The beauty of nature embraces a spirit of endeavour
that's our our mentor, too, and joy forever...

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022