Nature Study

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

Today’s poem has been slightly but significantly revised from the original version that appears in my collection, Love and Human Remains, Assembly Books, 2001

Now, a reader writes in to sat yesterday’s poem was “... a typical over-reaction to the amount of media attention given to fluke weather conditions this year...”

I usually respect intelligent points of view that conflict with my own, but this is hardly an intelligent response to a global crisis... well, is it?

NATURE STUDY

Brightness, falling from the sky
like summer rain, makes the flowers grow,
and the world shine
like rainbow trout on a school kid’s line
at a local stream,
who should be playing in a football team,
but his dad beat him
black and blue, with ma laid out
on the kitchen floor, and he’s not ready yet
to even take a shower

Brightness, falling from the sky
like acid rain, making the trees cry, as leaves
die like fishes everywhere
and other species, carefully laid out
under glass for science
and future generations to reason,
(or agree to differ)
how killing off a species smacks of depravation,
but biology, that’s education

Shadows, much like corpses
on the ground where skylarks once flew,
now a forgotten sound
at a spot where revelations in the clay
suggest a once-busy stream
in a world that aspired to give progress
a good run for its money,
no hint of humanity neatly laid out
under corporate glass for its endangered species
to argue rhetoric and excuses

High time humankind held Progress to its word,
encouraging a kinder, safer world...?...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; rev. 2021

Lines on last-ditch Damage Limitation

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

Better late than never, humankind appears to be finally waking up to its responsibility to preserve as much of the natural world as it can, given the damage already inflicted upon it in the name of progress.

Let us not kid ourselves, though. Time, always determined to go its own way regardless, is not on our side. If we want to save the planet and all manner of species that have known no other habitat, we all need to pull together now;   each and every one of us doing our bit to save energy, lower carbon emissions drastically if not entirely, think Green instead of relying on others to do so, thereby easing conscience and any sense of responsibility (providing we concede either) … and, yes, we might just save a world worth living in for future generations.

Our young people and their descendants deserve better than the kind of apathy so many people in the Here-and-Now continue to exhibit towards such issues as conservation, regeneration, improving air quality and cleaning up our rivers, seas and oceans - to name just a few. As I see it, quality of life is more important than life for its own sake, and if we don’t all start showing the natural world greater respect now, future generations will be seeing red, not green, and blaming twenty-first century apathy, greed, and an egocentricity beyond belief.

I had a conversation along these lines with someone in a shop recently while queuing to be served. This person took the view that “at least old people like yourself have no cause to worry about what might happen. Even if the worst comes to the worst, you’ll be long gone.”

But I do worry, and so should we all, regardless of who we are or where in the world we live or there may well come a time when it will be too late to worry about what might happen because it already has …

LINES ON LAST-DITCH DAMAGE LIMITATION

In a world top-heavy with pain and grief,

it takes but a butterfly caught in a ray

of sunshine to remind us that Earth Mother

is on our side, each and every minute

of each and every day, ready to give us

a hug when we need it most, remind us life

may be but a fleeting thing yet beautiful

and all the more precious and worth savouring

every moment for that

In a world top-heavy with pain and grief,

it takes but the laughter of a child

running to its mother across home ruins

war, terror or an angry Earth Mother

may well have tried to get across a message

invariably ignored by forces intent only

on making themselves heard above any calls

for peace, love, reconciliation, agreeing to differ

in a so-divided world

In a world top-heavy with pain and grief,

it is good to wake to a dawn chorus,

provided by its birds among trees acting

as Guardians of the Earth since birth

if poorly served in return by we saboteurs

of the natural world so accustomed

to putting our needs first that we forgot

humankind needs see to co-existing responsibly

with nature or pay dearly

Listen. Hear (all) species of land, sea, and sky

demanding we live and let live … or (all) die

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

Rites of Passage or Overkill?

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

Life, death, it’s an eternal balancing act...for nature as well as for humankind.

It's down to us to maintain a reasonable life balance, but the rise in obesity among children as well as adults in western societies suggests we should, well....think again.

Let's not underestimate the power of the natural world either in compensating - in part, at least - for its own darker forces, of which humankind happens to be the worst. We may like to think we do as reasonable a job of compensating for its as well as our own way of life, but could it not be that climate change and endangering (if not eliminating) various species is a memo from Earth Mother, to each and every one of us, to...think again?

I am reminded a something a teacher told the class on my very last day at school. "Education is a learning curve. Try to leap before you have learnt, and you'll soon find yourself in deep shit." Everyone laughed but, of course, it is no laughing matter.

RITES OF PASSAGE OR OVERKILL?

On the crest of waves like surfers poised to head
for home in a swirl of raging sea

Nature re-birthing us, milk at the breast, feeding
the best traditions of human spirit

Dark forces, expecting Everyman to take a fall
against all evidence to the contrary

Everyman going it alone on a lion’s back asking
humanity to find it in itself to follow

Survival, greeting applause (hearts and minds)
if only for a sublime moment in time

History, inclined to lose its footing and leave it up

to the arts to restore a balance off sorts

Humankind, surfing a primeval wisdom, drafting
and redrafting pacts with its nemeses

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Balancing Act' in an anthology, Watch the Dawn, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.] 

Weeping Ozone, Sleepwalking World

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

[Update July 29th 2019: The world s beginning to wake up to the threat of climate change. Better late than never, although some pf its major players (like US President Donald Trump, to name just one continue to insist it is fake news. Let's all hope it is not too late for future generations.] RT

It is GOOD that (at last!) the world is starting to take climate change seriously, and accepting some responsibility for it. Even so, I can’t help thinking it is too little too late…especially as humankind is, on the whole, inclined to put its immediate needs first; immediate, but often (well) above and beyond the basics. Food, shelter and affordable housing are constantly put at risk by corporate greed funded by the wealthy intent upon getting wealthier and supported by the kind of back-door politics at which so many politicians excel.

There are, of course, a lot of good people out there if outnumbered by the bad. (The expression, 'the smile on the face of a tiger' springs to mind…)

It will be down to future generations to make the best (or worst, as the case may be) of the mess we have made and  continue to make of our planet with whatever resources available and, hopefully, a generous dose of sound common sense.

Whatever happened to priorities? It is bad enough that many people continue to bury their heads in the sand and pretend global warming is a fiction. How a significant number of those same people can continue to rage against gay relationships, for example, while playing down if not ignoring what has to be one of the greatest threats to the human race we will ever face is beyond my comprehension.

WEEPING OZONE, SLEEPWALKING WORLD

Terror in the sky, likely to bring
about the destruction of our planet;
rivers run dry, poisoned plants,
beasts of the wild starved of a will
to live, birds of the air unable
to take wing, too weak to sing even;
fishes in the sea, last to survive
nature’s very own Armageddon,
no end of tears in the ozone

Fear enough to melt glaciers,
seed mountains, valleys, urban oases
of wishful thinking among
fortune hunters quick to seize the day,
make a killing for profit (or kicks)
in human as well as animal trade-offs,
heart sleeves of the best cloth,
faux promises dead in the water,
potential eulogy for humanity

Panic in forests stripped of trees
meant to protect us in mean streets,
 androids forced to their knees
by silicon gods competing to be first
to clone eternity, any semblance
of morality but a vainglorious sterility
glossing over forsworn obligations
to generations left rummaging nature
for crumbs of survival

To the earth, a relentless rush of pain
its peoples shrug off as acid rain

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye: poems by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004 under the title 'Under Threat'; rev title 2018.]

Requiem For A Skylark/ Nature Trail (Two short poems)

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

Enjoying nature has to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. Here in the UK, as elsewhere in the world, it is down to each and every one of us to save as many of its green and pleasant places and wildlife habitats as possible for future generations...or they will not easily forgive us, if ever.

REQUIEM FOR A SKYLARK

On tuneful wing, our seasons

scanning, circles and dips

anxiously a covenant

with Earth's poetry, where

once a nesting tree

grew tall

Now, a shopping

mall

 NATURE TRAIL

Follow leafy trails

into red and orange,

silver, green;

let the dew of life

wash clean our

dirty hands;

be still, antic winds

till nothing's heard

but an egg-bird;

a tear in the eye,

all our yesterdays

on standby

[From: First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002]

The Last Donkey Ride

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

Nature may be fickle, but so is human nature; the chances are whoever takes the last donkey ride will look around and see a coastline that’s nowhere near as sound or green as we see now or may have done centuries ago; even the sea is losing its wildlife to a polluted modernity. 

Humankind may we rail against nature where it wreaks havoc and tragedy, the greater irony being that, in our desperation to harness and make it serve our own ends, there is really little to choose between the two.

Most if not all we human beings are vain enough to think we deserve priority over the natural world. Could it be, though, that Earth Mother has other ideas?

THE LAST DONKEY RIDE

Time and again you have passed me by,

turned a cloth ear to cries from a heart

begging its release or at least some relief

from such pain as only they know
who roam  the shores of life asking Why?"

In spite of those willing to lend a hand

where the need is greatest, you  deny

ignore, the rhetoric of discretion being

much the better part of valour

So weary am I of being taken for a ride,

on wings of a prayer or bored donkeys

at the seaside reassuring children

how sand shells tell tales of a golden age

not yet spent … where the sea is as safe

as the sky is blue, grass is green and corn

grows high, hopes for world peace
alive and well if but sailing on driftwood 

among time’s uneasy swell

How long can it last, me doing my best

for kith and kin, you abandoning us

to empty words, promises of better days,

world left railing against humankind’s

inhumanity, sure to get the better of me

without even a native dignity to cover

my blushes as they strip me bare, caring

little more in their naivety for my decline

than our mutual salvation?

Hear me, your Earth Mother in distress,

ye who engineer the Politics of Progress 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

This collection is still in print, but only on sale in the UK.  All readers, including any outside the UK, can obtain (signed) copies direct from me at a generous blogger discount on [retail price + shipping]. Enquiries to: rogertab@aol.com with ‘Poetry collection’ or ‘Blog reader’ in the subject field.

Beating Up The Planet

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

I suspect historians may well look back at the early 21st century and portray us as a bunch of sadomasochists!

Who could blame them, eh?

At least we have now our first Green Party MP here in the UK so maybe there's hope for us all yet and people will stop thinking that voting Green is a wasted vote. Let's face it. The G8/20 leaders aren't going to do much for us...for all their huffing and puffing.

BEATING UP THE PLANET

Running a gamut of earthquakes,
beating the flames

Sheltering in Iraq from bullets
beating down

Watching children of a lesser god
beating up butterflies

Letting our leaders get away with
beating drums

Standing for democracy’s bouncers
beating up flowers

Paying a price for politic players
beating the odds

Treating poverty’s weeping wounds,
(beating its hunger?)

Singing praises to a Greater Power,
(beating terror?)

Preparing to swim with polar bears,
beating ourselves up

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]