A Feeling for Spring

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

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” - Mark Twain

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe 

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reader A. D. asks why I am “… so preoccupied with inter-communication between people, so-called ‘agreeing to differ’ and engaging in discussion even about personal issues where there are clearly radical differences of opinion. “Better for everyone, surely,” he or she suggests, “to let sleeping dogs lie?”  Well, we must, indeed, agree to differ, say so and shake on it. In my experience many if not most such 'sleeping dogs' are badly in need of a wake-up call; being left to sleep on,  thereby likely to inflict such damage on human relationships as not easily mended.

One of the greater tragedies of human nature is the inability or reluctance of many people to confront those against whom they may hold a grudge, invariably for fear of having to endure a bitter exchange of insults, commonly referred to as ‘home truths'.

Both parties are usually to blame, to some extent for broken relationships, but it takes only one to make a start on a healing process.  Many of us, including yours truly, have no idea how to make a start, whether it be with a family member, friend or neighbour, often for fear of being accused of simply making excuses for what has been perceived as unforgivable behaviour, but may well have been a misunderstanding due to circumstances left unshared. 

The longer any misunderstanding or genuine excuse remains silent, refusing to engage in any healing process, the longer any grudge will fester, mind-body-spirit, turning a deaf ear to whatever heart-and-soul is constantly mulling, even grieving over.

True, some broken relationships cannot be mended, but not for want of trying. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, though, surely? The problem remains, though, that some well-meaning efforts may well be misinterpreted, taking us back to square one. Even so, an aggrieved heart-and-soul may yet find a welcome measure of peace for having dispended with the futility of harbouring grudges.

A FEELING FOR SPRING

I am so much the sweeter taste
and fragrance of life, just for having
shed those darker senses
keeping heart-and-soul from engaging
fully, openly, positively
with a mind -body-spirit struggling
under the growing weight
of  ill-judged expectations or responses
plunging knives into You-Me-Us

Having been given no opportunity
to put my side of things as misunderstood
and left to fester, bad feeling
getting the better of any finer senses 
of fair play, never spoken,
kept hidden in recesses of heart-and-soul
feeding on bitterness,
happiness left to but make the best it can
of the contrariness of being human

I am as that first full kiss or spring,
come to relieve the pain of such wintry days
as we have felt obliged
to endure, no hint of  choice, no voice
for having been unable
to penetrate certain defences, both yours
and mine, now worn down 
by tears for such likely misunderstandings 
as deserving of happier landings

I am Forgiveness, making time for a fresh start,
finally come to flower in the human heart

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

No Hiding Place

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

“Hide nothing, for time which sees all and hears all, exposes all.” – Sophocles.

“Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer for persuasion of belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong.” - Plato

“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?’ Expedience asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Then Vanity come along and asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But Conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’”  -Martin Luther King Jr.

“Eloquence is the nature of art and cannot be learned in schools, but rhetoric is the creature of art which he who feels least will most excel in.” – Charles Caleb Colton

Now, forgiveness never comes easy for any of us. But if a greater part of the civilized world will never forgive Vladimir Putin for authorising the Russian invasion of Ukraine, political expediency alone will ensure an enduring pragmatism, whatever rhetoric it delivers to its peoples.

Much the same, I daresay, can be said of human nature as it affects all our lives on a daily basis.

NO HIDING PLACE

No safe place to hide away,
give us time and space enough to see
our way through
the damn maze of mixed feelings,
under the digital
watch of a world far less inclined
to forgive than to live
and let live, no matter what’s true or fake,
only make or break

We think the very deceptions
we weave will see us easily and safely
through the maze,
our being architects of its every bend,
so unlikely to fall foul
of such untruths and half-truths
required to negotiate
every twist and turn, emerge a clear winner
in the politics of power

Power, though, over others,
for all its fine trappings, may yet prove
as vulnerable
to the very worst flaws in human nature
exploited on its way
with more than a little help from friends
of like minds,
convinced, by now they could do even better
than their mentor

Every heart has its heroes,
deliverers from such evils as the world
creates or promotes;
for every such hero, though, its antonyms
giving expression
to an innate, ever-nagging vanity,
feeding on an inability
to see a potential in humanity to resist persuasion
under coercion...

Our enemies, though primed
in the art of faux reason and persuasion
risk exposure,
by majority life and art forces deploring
any act that’s at best,
only human, at worst abandoning
the truer landscape
of any personal space where a free mind-body-spirit
defies corrosion of it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022

War and Peace

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"Forgive and forget, but never forget to forgive. You may find a happier heart is the key to a happier life." – Mahatma Gandhi

"Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." – Buddha

"Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes to sorrow it." – Cormac McCarthy

Many if not most of us fall out with friends and family from time to time, even lose patience with the powers that be for the way they have a major say in how our country is run; hence, people protesting in Russia at the moment over its aggression against Ukraine, even though they know they face a long prison sentence.

Given time, fallen bridges may yet be rebuilt, but needs must we remember that time can never be relied upon to so oblige us.

WAR AND PEACE

I am part of a healing process
to an open wound that seem to take
ages to close if, indeed
it ever will for festering at every move
I make towards understanding
how come it still hurts me so, even though
its damage done long since,
yet mind-body-spirit unable to go free, subdue
if not kill the rage in me

How to forgive anyone unable
to comprehend such damage done as
forgiveness seeks
reparation, if only they accept their share
of blame, where blame
on both sides invariably lies, needs
talking through, less concerned
with seeing home truths score hits than learning
the lessons they teach

At home, abroad, war or peace,
though agreeing to differ at the end of talks,
only fools resist
giving peace a chance to fly its colours,
high, and proudly so
for all to see, endorsing what may well
be perceived as compromise,
but one such as heart-and-soul would lend us time
to make us whole again

Country-family-friends, engaging in war or peace,
such is human variant of Choice

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2022

 

Alice Maud Taber OR Remembering My Mother

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

[Update: 22nd March 2020] Today is Mothers' Day, and likely to prove very upsetting for many people. The COVID 19 coronavirus pandemic continues to spread and take its toll on the vulnerable and elderly in societies worldwide. While social distancing is necessary to help slow the spread of the virus sufficiently to help medical and emergency services teams to cope, not visiting Mum today of all days won't be easy.]RT 

My mother was one of the least judgemental people I have ever known and would have applauded transgender men and women for finding the moral courage to be true to themselves and look the world in the eye. (Far too many people worldwide rush to judgement without giving a second thought to how it must feel to live in a body that cannot truly relate to the gender assigned to it.

It is some years since my mother died on June 2nd 1976. [She was born 100+ years ago on July 16 1916; a hundred years to the day, a friend came to lunch and we toasted her over a glass of Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur.]

She was a remarkable woman, my Mum. She would talk to anyone and anyone would talk to her regardless of any artificial class barriers. Above all, she was a very understanding and forgiving person, traits of human nature that - in my experience - rarely go hand in hand in people and which, sadly, are anything but common in my own family. (I like to think I am a very understanding person, but struggle with forgiveness although I usually get there in the end.)

Throughout my childhood, my mother would often tell me story poems instead of a traditional story at bedtime. (She could recite 'The Highwayman' (Noyes) and 'The Ancient Mariner  ' (Coleridge) by heart!) Even as a young man, I used to love to hear her reciting poetry.

We cannot celebrate death, but celebrating a person much loved and a life well lived is always a privilege.

   

My mother at 21 (1937)

My mother at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, 1971

ALICE MAUD TABER or REMEMBERING MY MOTHER

         (1916-1976)

Always there for me, believing in me

more than I believed in myself, knowing me

better than I knew myself,

loving me more than I loved myself

although I could never  give you

what you wanted, be what you wanted,

live or love how you wanted...

subscribe to your fantasy of family unity;

we did our best by each other, assisting

one another through life’s maze of emotional

twists, turns, and dead-ends; me, unable

to grasp for years how conflicting loyalties

were tearing you apart...

Yours, a divided heart never truly made whole;

we whose demands you loved to meet

always failing it. Yet, even now, years on

since a tumour took its toll, you are (still)

one to whom this poet turns, always striving

for some peace of mind, heart, and soul

(imagination’s impossible goal) - learning 

to read between lines to which you gave

life and meaning. Only, then I wasn’t listening

(youth thinks it knows everything.)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2011

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the original version that appears as the dedication poem in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

The Gatekeeper's Song

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

While we are all sitting on fences, tearing them down or maybe even trying to mend some, I wonder what The Gatekeeper thinks about it all...?

THE GATEKEEPER’S SONG

They turned their backs on me

or was it I who ran away…?

Memory, it so likes to play tricks

on us, rather than let us see

what really takes place in corners

of the heart we rarely seek out,

for fearing what we may find

in holiday snapshots and behind

words in letters read in anger,

birthday cards left unsent, never

recognising the danger of years

passing so quickly till we’ve only

such poor excuses and regret

as conscience cares to permit shine

in darkest corners of the mind

where, yes, we’d so return a while,

have love take us that last mile

where stubborn feet still refuse to go

though heart and soul never left,

and would set us free, let us see all

the heart deserves to know

No, not free from nature's finer ties

(never that) but, rather, set out

in tablets of stone, supposedly less

likely to break than any we shape

in a clay that may please human eyes

for moment in time, but hardens

(not as we imagined) to a perspective

on dark corners where sometimes

pain seeks solace, yet finding none

in unused icons of human hearts

left but to gather dust like old photos

Better, surely, to air home truths

(even after years of running away)

if only to deny the world its pleasure

in exposing us along tired lines

of letting live but to die another day,

no matter where any blame let lie

nor we (or they) be straight or gay?

Time to open the gate before it’s too late

to live to love another day…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010, 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; slightly but significantly revised, 2019.]