A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Saturday, 12 October 2024

A Tapestry of Life


From Roger’s friend, Graham


Greetings and welcome,

I hope that you’re thriving wherever you are in the world. A quick update - I’m still working on part 2 of Roger’s poetry reading for YouTube. In the meantime, I’m sharing some further reflections on his poetry.

A recurring theme in Roger’s work is an intimate relationship with nature. His narratives explore complex  interconnectivity between animals, plants, environment and self. Beyond the impressionistic imagery lies a deeper communion with nature aspiring to the sacred. Roger’s inspiration flowed from this affinity with the natural environment. He described it as pantheism - although it also shares ideals with Jainism.

Both Roger and I grew up under the yoke of Christian tradition - which we rejected in adulthood. But our reasons went beyond the insidious anti-gay and misogynist bigotry lurking in certain Old Testament tracts. It was the notion that humans stand alone in all creation as being divinely inspired; uniquely housing a ‘soul’. That flawed foundation of ethics which affords adherents free reign to exploit and enslave (so-called) lesser creatures and desecrate the environment - while obviating responsibility as to suffering or consequence. As with the other Abrahamic religions, Christian dogma conjures the illusion of separation from, and elevation over the rest of nature. (It also provides insight into ecclesiastical hubris.)

The enlightenment of science teaches us that this is fundamentally and evidentially wrong. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees - with whom we share a common ancestor 6-7 million years ago. We can trace our evolutionary lineage on the tree of life back through millennia. Our origin and purpose in the universe aren’t inscribed on tablets of stone, but rather, recorded indelibly within strata of rock.

Humankind are not the animal kingdom’s divinely-ordained overlords – we’re it’s caretakers; bearing that weight of responsibility. We’ve close kinship to our fellow creatures. Who could gaze into the eyes of their pet dog, their cat or other domesticated animals and not sense their emotional complexity? Who could fail to acknowledge their affection, their joy or their pain? It offers an inkling that we’re part of something bigger… part of Earth Mother’s glorious magnum opus comprising all living things.

Roger’s nature poems recognise that we’re inextricably interwoven into the tapestry of life; that we’re but threads within the greater fabric of existence.

Take care,
Gx

 

*  *  *  *

 

ANTHEM PLAYED ON A GRASS HARP

Watery sun dripping through trees,
leaves sparkling like jewels in a crown
where we’d wander, my love and I,
ears pricking up at a chick’s first cry,
looking out for others flapping their way
on first flights through dawn rainbows
till gliding with ease as nature meant
for us all, although less so among humans,
a species well known for thinking they
know better than Earth Mother, wishing
them ill (and Hell) who resist straitjackets
and persist in walking tall

On a magic carpet of many colours,
among daisies passing for fairies
in a palace of dreams, we’d go free,
where all prejudices and bigotry
mean less than a fair breeze in the face,
Earth Mother’s caress in the hair,
reminding us how we are, one and all,
as nature intended, no one creature
any more or less precious than another,
each, in their own way, a ‘live’
testament to mind-body-spirit and a history
lending meaning to eternity

We arrived where the carpet
tuned into stone, where no sun shining,
only Shadows, a gathering of forces
preparing to take humanity on and win
any fight it may choose to pick,
no matter rights and wrongs (or alternative
points of view); for them, a certainty
that the world has no place for men, women
and young people whose sexuality
offends a majority choosing to make stand
on a Ship of Fools in a gale force wind, set on
making sense of humankind

Oh, but spring in our hair like jewels in a crown
Love takes for its own!

 

Copyright R.N. Taber 2010 from the collection ‘On the Battlefields of Love’. Revised 2021.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Bluegrass Buddha

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

Deep thinking, especially perhaps when it takes a wishful or wistful turn, may well take us to the the most wonderful if unexpected places...

BLUEGRASS BUDDHA

Pensive, cross-legged
on the sandbanks of time
wishing the tide away...
watching the flotsam and jetsam
of long, happy hours
swoop and dive like gulls
chasing crumbs thrown
by this child, those watchers,
from a sandcastle’s tower
on a blue glass sea of dreams

Oh, happiness, reminding
like specks in a kaleidoscope
even as it turns, like earth
around the sun, of days gone
forever, never to return...
Good, bad, halcyon days
chasing after crumbs
thrown by this child-watcher
from a castle of half lies
on a bluegrass sea of dreams

Listening to The Man play
and, oh, so wishing the tide away
if only for peace of mind,
entering into a past-present future
working and reworking
mind-body-spirit on behalf of ghosts
that would have us avoid
the errors of their ways, lead us
not into temptation
on a bluegrass sea of dreams

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005

[Note: An earlier version of this poems appears in A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Footprints In A Field Of Dreams

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

Today’s post is duplicated on both my general and gay-interest blogs.

Many thanks to those readers who have been in touch with kind words about my latest YouTube video filmed in the Memorial Garden in London’s Grosvenor Square created in memory of the British victims of the 9/11 attacks. One lady has asked me to repeat the direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF9KHwjC6zg

And if it doesn’t work, just go to my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

Meanwhile...

How many times, I wonder, do we ask ourselves why, oh, why do we bother and just what is it all for?

FOOTPRINTS IN A FIELD OF DREAMS

The world, it’s so big;
we, we’re so small,
and, oh, what’s the point
of it all?

The flowers, they grow
only to rise and fall,
and, oh, what’s the point
of it all?

Some people succeed
where others fail
though they try so hard
at it all;
others, they struggle on
at hardship’s call,
the most deserving among
us all

I look from my window
and feel so small
but, oh, that’s the point
of it all;
expanding its parameters,
walking tall,
and where doesn’t matter
at all

I’ve watched flowers die
where their petals fall
but, oh, that’s the point
of it all

It’s love peace and beauty,
though they be fragile
will see us win our wars
after all

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,