The Walker OR Creative Therapy for Couch Potatoes

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

I can confirm that spring here in the UK is not the season it used to be; blame global warming, tricks of memory, whatever…

A neighbour remarked only recently that, ‘Before we know it, winter will be here. Our weather these days is not only unreliable, but so defeating...’

Defeating...? I beg to differ.

THE WALKER or CREATIVE THERAPY FOR COUCH POTATOES

I’ll walk among trees today,

watch leaves fall, even hear autumn

calling

I’ll cross green fields,

catch a flypast of swallows not (yet)

for turning

I’ll stroll a feisty twilight,

a soft, golden glow like altar candles

flickering

I’ll confess a world not done

with me yet on a moon, for its lovers,

still rising

I’ll take each season to task

for any joyless echoes among choirs

sweetly singing

I’ll resist any erosion of senses

by a north wind bent on giving tears

an airing

I’ll let Earth Mother embrace me,

feel loved where waves of loneliness

breaking

I’ll defy body, mind or spirit

to defeat me notwithstanding worldly
nemeses

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

A Short Essay On Children's Play OR Peter Pan Revisited

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

I am no die-hard capitalist by any stretch of the imagination, but the idea that a capitalist is related to the Bogey Man under a child’s bed is absurd. Raising that child and trying to give him or her best chances in life is a costly business. Capitalism plays no small part in making those chances available.

A former colleague commented only recently on a mutual friend who is doing well in the world of big business that it was an obvious career choice for him because, ‘Like all fat cats, he thinks with his wallet and has no imagination.’ Yes, well, there are exceptions to every sweeping statement, and in this case I happen to know better...

Children's play is SO important to personal development in our formative years; apart from the mental as well as physical value of exercise, it encourages us to form relationships, engage in teamwork, appreciate if not understand human nature better, make certain allowances wherever they  need to be made, agreeing to differ without falling out and discovering the art of reconciliation whenever we do...

Sadly, some if not many of us do not always carry lessons learned as children and young people into adult life.

A SHORT ESSAY ON CHILDREN'S PLAY or PETER PAN REVISITED

I chanced to glance from a window
at children playing in the street below;
their colourful antics took me back
to halcyon times of myth and magic;
I couldn’t resist opening the window,
setting sail on waves of wicked laughter
to a bay where cliffs of ivy trellis towered
above a stormy sea of long grass

The garden shed, a mighty galleon,
we handkerchief pirates bearing down,
makeshift swords ready and able,
all hands to the oars of a cast-off table;
we’d meant to take no prisoners,
but time and tide got the better of us;
heaven closed in, fired a broadside, hinting
at our mothers to call us back inside

From the window, I saw someone
rush at the children, moving them on;
‘Away! Let’s have some peace!’
(Leviathan jaws indulging on innocence.)
I slammed the window shut, angry
at being dragged thus from my reverie,
mindful that imagination’s pull has no place
among crew around a boardroom table

I had a fight on my hands that day,
to see my motion passed come what may,
sailed too close to the wind in the eyes
of those least inclined to be adventurous,
but, oh, I got the better of them all
(in spite of a broadside too close to call)
steered my prize safely to harbour, discreetly
wiping my brow with a pirate’s bandana

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

[Note: This poem first appeared in A Way of Life, Poetry Now, 2001 and subsequently in Poetry Rivals 2012: Captured Moments, Forward Press, 2012]