Covid Autumn

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

A child at a bus stop asked its mother, “Why do so many leaves fall in autumn?” A woman in the queue answered for the perplexed mum, “They cry a saint’s tears for all of us so we can be spared too much crying, “What’s a saint?” the child wanted to know. “Your ma, for a one,” the woman chuckled, “… if only for raising you up to ask questions.” 

Everyone laughed, just as the bus arrived, but plenty of food for thought there, yeah?

That was years ago. I was the child, aged about five years, tugging at my mother’s hand in a bus queue. Later, I asked my mother if she thought the woman was rude for butting in. She  laughed, a twinkle in each eye, “Well, maybe she shouldn’t have butted in, but she certainly made my day, and you would do well to remember what she said about asking questions.” I promptly took my cue and asked, “Can I have an ice-cream?” Whereupon I learned something else that day; not every question supplies the answer you are hoping for …

Seventy years on, I am still asking questions such as the one on everybody’s lips at the moment, “Why this coronavirus, and for how long?” No easy answers to that one nor quick fixes either although I would suggest those selfish people letting their masks slip and/ or refusing to wear one as and when required simply because they don’t want to, ask themselves what gives them the right to put others at risk … ?

COVID AUTUMN

Winter closing in fast,
Earth Mother weeping as always 
for Her sleeping beauties,
yet taking comfort in a reawakening
come another spring,
while tears, too, for all Earth’s children,
no matter who or where,
having to live with pain, anxiety, fear,
as never (quite) felt before 

Winter, calling on all nature
to be sure and make due preparation
for whatever it takes;
separation, hibernation, skeletal trees
echoing hopeful springs,
glorious summers, evergreen cousins
egging on any ghosts nesting
where not so long ago sounds of birthing,
singing, true joie de vivre 

Winter, a forbidding season,
yet able to not only summon such ghosts
of universal significance,
but bring them together, lend them a finer
magnificence then any diary
of personal or global consciousness,
even its horrors redeemed
by heroes of war and peace destined to prove
the tragi-wisdom of sacrifice 

Falling leaves, such tears
as nature and human nature needs must
let fall in remembrance
and gratitude for natural and personal
histories at the heart
of all things bright and beautiful, all creatures
great and small, long before
natural and human waste began to haunt a sleepy
global consciousness 

Nothing changes, everything changes, such is the turn
of the screw that is a Covid-19 autumn

 Copyright R N. Taber 2020

 

A (Covid) Season of the Heart

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

Another new post-poem today, although any message it manages to get across will sound very familiar to regular readers. Still, it has been my experience that anything worth saying is invariably worth repeating, especially as, like so many of us, passing years see to it that I am getting very forgetful, even more so when under the kind of stress this Covid-19 persists in imposing on us all. 

Years of hormone therapy since my prostate cancer was first diagnosed in 2011, not to mention growing older (I will be 75 soon) leave me feeling very tired and ready for bed by around 9.30-10 pm most nights, whatever the time of year. Autumn, though, as nature and human nature braces for winter, brings with it a curious kind of fatigue, one tempered with a sense of expectation that things will get better come springtime, and it’s just a question of bearing the burden of winter with fortitude rather than despair; not unlike sleeping off a nasty headache. 

Most of us are familiar with ‘the old saying, ‘Where here’s life, there’s hope; a teacher at my old school had his own version of that, slightly but significantly amended to ‘Where there are life forces, there is hope.’ 

Nature goes quiet in winter, but it does not die; any life forces passing into oblivion, will most likely be regenerated come springtime; beneath the very wintry earth we tread, there are seeds awaiting their cue to wake and grow. It has been my experience, for many years, that much the same can be said for the human condition; mind-body-spirit may appear to be asleep sometimes, less active on our behalf, but it is only sleeping and will invariably take its cue to engage with us more positively again as needs must it should, if not always as and when we might prefer. 

Sometimes, there is nothing for it but we have to play a waiting game; similarly, it would seem, with the coronavirus.

Many people agree that love never dies, but even they will concede that as loved ones die, our love for them that endures in personal space cannot compensate for their physical presence. I agree, but that is where a belief in the posthumous consciousness comes into its own; as regular readers know, I believe in ghosts and their presence in and all around us, as forming part of our whole by way of their influence for the better in the course of both their lifetimes and ours. 

I can close my eyes and see them, hear them advising and comforting me as they have always done, especially during hard times … can’t you?  

This poem is a villanelle.

A (COVID) SEASON OF THE HEART 

Covid, on an autumnal breeze,
nature, all but ready for its winter sleep,
birds departing first-home trees 

Leaves, tears of one who grieves,
among rustlings of promises yet to keep;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze 

Apollo, no less anxious to please,
assuring us another spring we’ll yet reap,
birds departing first-home trees 

Drawing on a stoicism of centuries,
Hope on humanity, its blessings shall heap;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze 

Come winter, nature’s worst injuries
restored anew, though we hear not a peep;
birds departing first-home trees 

There’s a spirituality in autumn leaves,
cue for human hearts, joie-de-vivre to keep;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze,
birds departing first-home trees

Copyright R N Taber 2020

Autumnal Life Forces

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

This poem first appeared on the blog in 2012; it has been slightly but significantly revised since I included it in my collection, Accomplices to Illusion, 2007. I am hoping to publish new editions of my earlier collections at some future date; they will mostly comprise revised versions of poems from first editions.

Having just finished my first new collection since 2012, I am approaching publishers, but may need to self-publish again as many just don't like the idea of general and gay-interest poems under one cover; Then, just one more collection before I tackle any new editions. As I will be 75 soon, I can but hope that old age and Covid-19 will keep me alive long enough. <<wry bardic grin>>

Meanwhile ...

I love autumn. I don't find it a depressing season. The incredible colours of turning leaves never fail to fill me with passion along the lines of optimism, hope, and defiance even at a time of sadness for the beginnings of endings … 

However hard a winter we may endure, we can always look forward to a kinder spring and new beginnings, such is the way of the natural world, ours too if we but let ourselves access the kinder human spirit; religion does not have a monopoly on

spirituality. (As regular readers know, I do not subscribe to any religion as such, although I do relate very strongly to Pantheists who see God as nature, rather than its creator.)

AUTUMNAL LIFE FORCES 

In a garden spread with dead leaves
and heads of flowers,
I once heard tales told by a dying rose
soon to breathe its last,
about a Man in Red passing through
the world, scaring us
like the Bogey Man in hiding
under a child's bed, pretending to roar
like a dragon up for sport,
despite as vulnerable a heartbeat
as an ageing pet

Neither young nor old, a Man in Red
wears buttons of gold
on a coat the colour of blushing cheeks
at our making a faux pas,
made to look as small as a toy dragon
under the bed, where dawn
is prologue to adventure and sunset
fingers of blood, though 
we'll be safe enough tucked away
in bed, free to dream, and tomorrow
is another day ... 

According to the rose, the Man in Red
has kindly ways, in spite 
of inviting cloud and wind to feed 
on gentle trees,
rip them bare while a few songbirds
dare to watch and wonder
how sounds of war become songs 
of peace, fear become joy,
leaving a friendly Sandman free
to paint over the bleakest scenarios
with bold colours 

"He comes for us all, and we must depart,
to engage forever with the human heart."

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2020

[Note: Photo taken from the Internet. An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Autumn is a Man in Red' in Accomplices to Illusion by R, N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

 

 

 

Spirit of Autumn

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

People often tell me they find autumn a sad month because it means winter is closing in, but as I have often pointed out on my blogs… after winter, spring.

Better, surely, to look forward to spring than dread winter? 

In the meantime, let us enjoy autumn for all its glorious colours and the sense of eternal optimism these are surely meant to inspire in us, an optimism that well may fail us from time to time...but, as my late mother once said, there is an eternal springtime of the loving, hopeful heart sure to inspire and help us through all the seasons of life, even the hardest of its winters...if we will but keep faith with it. When I pointed out that I was not a religious person, she simply responded to the effect that no religion has a monopoly on love and hope since we are all born with a potential capacity for both. How far we choose to apply it, she would argue, has more to do with human nature than religion. (My mother was a Christian, but like all the more remarkable religious-minded people, whatever their religion, she closed her heart and mind to no one.)

SPIRIT OF AUTUMN

Autumn leaves... 

Drifting by my window

like dreams I have nurtured

with love and care

in the garden of my life

where some flowered

in their season while others

were battered by wind and rain,

never to be seen again

Autumn leaves...

Whirling by my window

like dervishes in a frenzied

dance of life and death,

sustained by a rage to seize

the day, come what may,

on the battlefields of my life

where I have risked all to prove

a born capacity for love

Autumn leaves...

Clinging to my window

as Apollo clings to the last patch

of blue before sunset,

bids nature and human nature

rest on hard won laurels,

so-brief enough reprieve before

more rude awakenings to a world

falling on its sword

Autumn leaves...

Ripped from my window

like pages of memory best left

to whims of wind and rain

while I enjoy each dreamy leaf,

petal and blade of grass

found in the garden of my life

whose choirs heard singing each day

of my pride in being gay

Autumn leaves, tears of Earth Mother 

for any that cannot see beyond winter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2020

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my gay-interest blog today] RNT

Autumn, Season of Silences

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2013.

When barely spring here in the UK, it is already autumn in some parts of the world. An Australian reader living and working in London one spring and ‘feeling homesick’ once asked for an autumn poem. [I lived in Australia once, a long time ago, and would love to go back as fate had it in for me at the time and I wasn't able to stay long. Sadly, travel insurance due to my prostate cancer and other health issues is prohibitive so I suspect I never will.]

There is a dreamy quality about autumn that, for me, is like listening to unspoken poems, a spirited silence that no other season can quite match, even a feisty spring or gregarious summer, as if it is loath to go into a winter sleep likely to subdue its silence if not its spirit ...

AUTUMN, SEASON OF SILENCES 

One long, lovely summer

once I spent with you

till fallen angels broke cover;

enter autumn, on cue

Our time together near over,

we were as leaves

on a grieving sycamore

falling like tears

Drifting, piling on a grave

of broken promises,

all the love we’ll never have

for all our kisses

Saddest of autumn dreams,

unspoken poems

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2020

[Note: This poem was first published in an anthology, Shades of Autumn, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2004 and subsequently in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

An Autumn Reverie

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2017.

As a student of English and American literature (early 50 years ago … oo-err!) at the University of Kent in Canterbury in the 1970’s, I enjoyed reading the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I dipped into his Notebooks and could as easily relate to this entry then as now notwithstanding a mobility problem and my coming up to 75 years-old.

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."  - Nathaniel Hawthorne [Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]

 AN AUTUMN REVERIE

Autumn leaves on a lake
caught like flies in a spidery web
of glittering sunlight

Breaking free in a breeze,
skimming feisty ripples, courtesy
of a north-westerly wind

Some taking off, low fly past
over sad trees standing at attention
for once-time companions

Others, caught in a sudden lull,
returned to the lake or as prodigals
to the earth’s safe-keeping

Somewhere, woodlands sounding
its Last Post by way of acknowledging
all its seasoned veterans

Glittering sunlight on a lake,
dead leaves like flies in a spidery web,
observers lost in thought

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020

Autumn Leaves OR Mind-Body-Spirit, No Stranger to the Fall

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

A new poem today, taking shape in my head as I looked out over a garden covered with fallen leaves, recalling another time,another place, another you-me-us...

We all get angry sometimes, even take it out on loved ones who resent  harsh words they do not deserve while we, in turn, resent their giving as good as they get.

Life is too short and love too precious to slam the door on reconciliation as, sadly, so many of us do...until we feel a pressing need to open the damn door, only to discover we have left it too late and pride really does come before a fall ...

AUTUMN LEAVES or MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, NO STRANGER TO THE FALL

Autumn leaves,
like love letters on my lawn
reminding me...
you're gone, never to return
since we parted
with angry words, duellers,
swords drawn

Autumn leaves,
like tears on the same pillows
we once shared...
where now I but toss and turn,
yearning for you,
for our lovemaking sublime,
dream come true

Autumn leaves,
like dreams in a blustery wind,
as if telling me
to my face, what a fool am I
having let you go
without letting you know
I need you so

Autumn leaves,
like a shower of confetti on us
in celebration
of paradise regained, our love
declared a winner,
anger, self-confessed loser,
duel over

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019; 2020

Stopover, Autumn

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

My late mother once commented that there is a sadness about autumn that makes her want to cry, but there is a beauty about it that deserves better so she settles for appreciating that especially as it keeps thoughts of winter at bay. "If autumn," she said, "is summer closing its eyes, they are not closed yet so we might as well enjoy its passing until such a time as winter, too, closes its eyes and is ready to open its (and ours) to the joys of another spring." She was something of a poet herself, my mum, and well as incurable romantic and as positive a thinker as I have ever known.

Now, in the late autumn of my years, I find myself better able to follow the various trails of thought she opened up for me all those years ago (she died when I was in my early 30's) regarding life, love, nature, human nature and, yes, poetry.

True, there is a sadness about autumn as much of nature prepares to sleep through another winter and recharge its batteries in readiness for another spring. At the same time, sadness for what we are about to lose inevitably triggers thoughts about just what it is we sense we are losing, to the extent that we may well invite mind-body-spirit to recover much if not all of it; invitation, accepted, the inner eye will never lose sight of anything or anyone we have ever feared losing.

There is a deeper sense of reality that transcends the physical; it is this that will always sustain us if we but let it rather than dwell on its absence. All living things die, but where any life makes a positive impact on our own, that never dies. (Nor does this have anything to do with religion; while I respect other people's religious beliefs, I subscribe to none myself, not least because I see it it is a divisive life force, and because no religion has a monopoly on the human spirit.)

I watch autumn leaves falling like tears, but shed none myself unless it is for the comfort and sheer joy of having had the seasons of my life engage with such a variety of delightful people, places, animals, whatever... more then enough to sustain me, whatever the season of my life. For this reason, I used to dread getting dementia until I realised that they are more than just memories, these past delights, they are an essential part of who we are; memory may well fade, but we ourselves remain, and all that has made us who we are lives on within us, and within any who may have shared our lives, however temporarily.

However we may view the prospect of dying, we can be sure something of us lives on in someone else. No one gets to physically follow in the footsteps of nature forever given that a time will come when our senses will not wake to another season; our spirit, however, in the sense of who we are and everything we have been to any who have played any part in our lives. big or small, that has other ideas and gets to go wherever it is invited. (A reader recently asked what I mean by 'a posthumous consciousness' to which I have often referred in other posts-poems. Hopefully this goes some way, at least, to answering the question.)


STOPOVER, AUTUMN

Evening, glancing off a leaf
like a bird on wing into time, space
and memories, the sweeter
for reminding me how once I met
with you (not by chance)
in a wood such as this, its leaves
a spectacle of red and gold,
inviting Man and Beast to engage
with autumn

Gone soon enough, leaf, bird
and twilight lending time and space
a murkiness, darkness foiled
by a canopy of stars, among them
one we wished upon
long, long ago, in the springtime
of our years, our tears
but as a passing twilight glancing
off a leaf

Enter, Sleep, a welcome respite
from the vagaries of nature, humanity
and time, affecting perceptions
glancing off personal space at first
or second hand to wing
heavenwards, much like home truths
flying shades of light and dark,
beyond measure, as good a safe house
as any

Come dawn, glancing off a leaf
like a bird on wing into time, space
and memories, the sweeter
for reminding me how once I met
with you (not by chance)
another time, another place, hearts
beating as one, you-me-us
my comfort and joy in this, the autumn
of my years

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019

Redbreast OR Mentor for Winter

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

There’s a wintry chill in the air. A neighbour remarked how she dreads winter, not least for its contagious sense of despair. True, in a sense, of course.  Even so the natural world never quite gives up on spring - however it may seem it has sometimes - and neither should we on ours even though, of all the human heart's seasons, its winters, too, are always the worst.

(Photo taken from the Internet)

REDBREAST or MENTOR FOR WINTER

A wintry frost,

but nature not (quite) done yet

with downpours

of splendid reds and gold,

so easy on the eye

A wintry smell

but nature not (quite) done yet

with the scents

of kinder seasons lulling humanity

into false hopes

A wintry song,

its message never (quite) finding

redbreast

preparing to make an heroic stand

against an ill wind

Redbreast, candles to help us see

through the dark

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

The Rose OR Answering to Autumn

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

I recall writing today’s little poem in 2003 after pausing to admire a rose in someone’s garden.

My mother loved roses, as did my late partner. Both died many years ago. They never met, yet here I was bringing them together in my thoughts, years on. How strange and sometimes incredibly moving that memories can be triggered, as if my magic, by the slightest thing, past and present fitting perfectly into each other like pieces of a jigsaw.

Will I ever be a perfect fit into someone’s jigsaw, I wondered…? And what will the complete jigsaw look like, mine or anyone else’s …?

It is no coincidence, I suspect, that the trigger for such thoughts, and indeed a poem, should embrace such visions of the heart as beauty, peace, and love.

THE ROSE or ANSWER ING TO AUTUMN

See them, one by one, 

petals falling away,

discarded by autumn, 
remains of our day

We helped it to grow,

nurtured its blooms

at time's open window

on ageless dreams

While winter keeps

no flower in view,

the rose, it but sleeps

in my love for you

Dreams, one by one.
petals falling away,
answering to autumn,
remains of our day.

Copyright R N Taber 2004, 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004, rev.. 2014.]

Autumn Sonata

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

(Photo taken from the Internet)

For me, September is the start of autumn…whatever the weather people or the almanacs say.

Here’s my favourite autumn villanelle. It was first published in an anthology, Seasons of Change, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2003 and subsequently in my collection.

Villanelles are not as easy to write as they look. Regular readers will know I have a passion for them and won’t be surprised to learn that I have written 200+. I try to vary style and content in my poetry and am always experimenting with voices. Even so, the villanelle remains a firm favourite of mine if only because its simplicity is far from simplistic and I get a sense of achievement from keeping to the discipline it imposes on a poet. Feedback suggests that some readers love them and others hate them, which is as it should be.

Left entirely to my own devices, I am inclined to waffle and have even been known to mix my metaphors. Oh, dear! Now, villanelles clear my head. They keep the inner eye focused on the straight and narrow if multidimensional paths along which a poet loves travel across uncharted territories of the mind, hopefully with his or her readers for company at various stages of the journey.

AUTUMN SONATA

Silvery grey skies,

leaves drifting,

summer closing its eyes

Lighting home fires,

hopes flaring

silvery grey skies

Holiday goodbyes,

wishful thinking,

summer closing its eyes

Words to the wise,

softly treading

silvery grey skies

With long, wistful sighs

and daydreaming,

summer closing its eyes

Time quickly passing,

our hopes surprising

silvery grey skies,

summer closing its eyes

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004]

Sea Change

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

Summer is fast ebbing away and a potpourri of autumn scents are in the air already, assailing the senses and changing the inner eye’s kaleidoscopic view of self, nature and the world…yet again.

Autumn is a beautiful season with its turning leaves of red and gold, yet sad also as we bid farewell to the swallows and prepare - along with much of nature - for the winter months ahead. At the same time, there is something beautiful, too, in sadness as if human spirit and spirit of nature are always conspiring to somehow soften the sharper edge of grief, loneliness, apprehension,…whatever, and never more so than in autumn.

This poem is a villanelle; it first appeared s in a Poetry Now [Forward Press] anthology A Summer’s Breeze (2003) and subsequently in my collection.

SEA CHANGE

Sea of muddy leaves,

our summer gone

as autumn grieves

Heaps, like ragged graves

with flowers strewn,

sea of muddy leaves

A dying sparrow heaves

its last, alone

as autumn grieves

North wind brings waves,

our seasons blown;

sea of muddy leaves

No kinder soul than braves

an acid rain

as autumn grieves

Each heart, in time, gives

up its own…

sea of muddy leaves

as autumn grieves

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004: new (e-edition) in preparation.]

An Affinity with the Life Force of Dead Leaves

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

A new poem today for autumn, and falling leaves everywhere (not confined to autumn) in a very blustery wind.

We all feel low sometimes. Only yesterday, I found myself relating to a dead leaf in the street, heading for a drain; a depressing experience until I reminded myself that it was not the end of the last leaf in the whole world; others would follow in an endless cycle of life and death where dying is not so much the beginning of the end but a way of leaving space for new beginnings.

An old man who lived on the street where I was born and lived until I was 14 years-old told me once that I should never fear death but think of it as a life-force. He was not a religious person so I thought his 80-something years must have taken their toll or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. (He died only weeks later.) It has taken me more than half a century to understand what he meant.

AN AFFINITY WITH THE LIFE FORCE OF DEAD LEAVES

I drifted lonely as a leaf

left to fare as it may in a wintry breeze,

perhaps (who knows?) missing

its parent tree and multiple siblings,

playing host to feathered friends

as long as their seasons last, world

a happier place for a kinder nature’s

wistful take on it

Who can ever say (for sure)

a leaf cannot think, feel, experience

the ebb and flow of life

in ways only Earth Mother knows

who gives, takes away,

and gives back again when the time

comes to renew her vows to humanity

at each spring blessing?

I watched a leaf sucked

into a drain, lost forever among sewage

beyond salvaging (who knows?)

as I feel myself sucked into a vortex

scaremongers call Old Age

where the hope is, we’ll be saved,  

lovingly pressed collectables between

pages of living memory

Did it feel rejected, my leaf,

for being left to rot in a dark sewer

where all the world’s garbage

flows into its seas, as likely to kill off 

countless life forms as the shrewd

property developer felling trees

or an old poet infecting imagination

with its worst fears?

Back home, a glossy magazine,

repudiating my distress as bold as brass

with the latest fashion pics,

celeb gossip, ideas to impress the boss,

tips on keeping old age at bay;

in the garden, leaves faring better, 

with the potential to give news editors

a good run for their money

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012