In Love and War

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

“Who else speaks for the Family of Man? They are in tune and step with constellations of universal law.“ - Carl Sandberg 

“The same spirits which make a white man drunk, make a black man drunk too.  Indeed, in this I can find proof of my identity with the Family of Man.” – Frederick Douglass

“We all carry inside us people who came before us.” – Liam Callanan

“[On speaking of family secrets:] I don’t know how you heal a wound and not let it get some air.”- Barbara Neely

“There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.” – W. H. Auden

The poem below relates to  a friend's  complaining about an elderly maiden aunt’s dour disposition. “She has as much sensibility as a cadaver,” he would say. A few days after the same maiden aunt’s funeral some years ago, my friend visited me to share the contents of a bundle of letters found tucked away at the bottom of a trunk in the old lady’s attic. They inspired an insatiable interest in genealogy that led my friend, several years later, to track down and surrender the letters to the very love child to which they refer.

Now, I loved my maternal grandparents, but never thought of them as extraordinary in any way until my mother told me how her father had deserted the Royal Navy during the war and joined the army under another name. A family secret, indeed, only revealed when my parents decided to marry. Only then were they told that they were not only the offspring of old family friends, but also first cousins...

IN LOVE AND WAR

Clearing out the attic
after a maiden aunt’s funeral,
found a cardboard box,
tied with string, under a pile
of old newspapers,
a bunch of letters inside,
a war diary of sorts, glanced 
at one, soon reading on more attentively,
reworking my family history

Love letters, exchanged
between a dour, but near relation 
and Joe, an army private;
outpourings of passion and desire
addressing such fears
as have accompanied wars 
for centuries, all the tenderness 
and poetry of lovers among war’s horrors,
dreaming of kinder tomorrows

One letter revealed
a pregnancy, the language of love
excelling, shared hopes
shining through every war-torn page,
littered with crossings-out,
and underlines highly charged
with mixed feelings,
every heartbeat, a near-miss bomb exploding,
love’s defences notwithstanding

Later letters voiced
a birth and death, victims of war, 
messengers of love, hope 
and peace, meaningless to a mother
made to give up her daughter
to a better life than she could offer,
give mind-body-spirit
a fighting chance to discover Happy-ever-After
amongst the aftermath of war

Finally, a faded photo 
of a woman to whom her family
only rarely referred,
a family of which both she and I share
a past-present-future 
beyond a dusty death among archives
testifying to the lives 
of ill-fated lovers this mad, mad, mad world over,
Family of Man, deserving better

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022 

[Note: Useful UK) websites:  https://www.sog.org.uk (Society of Genealogists)   https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives  (London Metropolitan Archives]

The Tree House

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

To the reader who asked why I don't always post my poems on both poetry blogs, I have relatively few readers who access my gay-interest poetry now, especially since feedback suggests that many gay poetry lovers who have dipped into its archives now dip into both blogs, having come to see that a poem is a poem is a poem, regardless of whether or not they can relate directly to it; every poem has something to say that's (hopefully) worth addressing.  

Sadly, although attitudes towards LGBT folks around the world are changing for the better, there are still many people various whose prejudices remain fuelled by misleading stereotypes and various socio-cultural-religious agendas.

Now, genealogy is a fascinating subject for many of us, especially given that our genes contribute so much to the kind of person we are; our mind-body-spirit may well owe more to them than we will ever know. 

It is always rewarding to study a family tree, put names to descendants too distant in time to have their photos in the family album, and go on to discover as much about them as we can. (Invariably, the experience is well worth any search fee). The Society of Genealogists here in London, for example, is always welcoming new members who want to explore its resources to research a past to which their own family is leaf and branch.

THE TREE HOUSE

I come to the tree house
to catch up with family members
I had only ever met
in a mind-body-spirit always curious
about this person and that
as referred to (if only incidentally)
in conversations as likely as not to ask
even more of me   

Home truths and myths,
resting here among their peers,
not only invoke history
but create its very fabrics themselves,
attracting families worldwide
to the tree house, hoping to find
enough to help explain any glaring gaps 
in their archives  

Life takes on new meaning
in the tree house, inviting empathy
with those less likely
to have made history books for news
of neither fame nor fortune,
but simply having tried to make a life
for men, women, children to whom I’m
kith and kin 

I come to the tree house
to look for clues, travel across time,
ask past generations
for any such points of reference
as may yet assist me 
in seeing just how it was we came
to be, in my capacity as leaf and branch
of its history 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

[Note: This poet-poem appears on both poetry blogs today.] RNT

R-O-O-T-S, Species of Moss Uncovered OR History, Cause and Effect

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2012.

Many of us are fascinated by our family history, and have been very frustrated by the closure of research libraries and archives due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Our predecessors carry the secrets of our genes which, in turn, help to shape who we are and what we make of our lives; a posthumous consciousness to which I often refer in my poems. Hopefully, more will be opening up as C-16 restrictions are gradually lifted ... so long as a second wave doesn't hit sooner rather than later.

Fingers (and toes) crossed; crossed, too for the re-opening of public libraries, of course.

But, oh, to be on the family history trail...!

This poem is a villanelle.

R-O-O-T-S, SPECIES OF MOSS UNCOVERED or HISTORY, CAUSE AND EFFECT

Challenging history,

moss on graveyard stone defies

what we call, identity

Traits of a personality

but a strategy ancestors devise,

challenging history

Shades of mystery

conspiring to spring surprise;

what we call, identity

A cliff-hanging story

of hope and glory, love and lies

challenging history

An affinity with mortality

drawn from family archives;

what we call, identity

A feeling for eternity,

whatever its ends may comprise;

challenging history,

what we call, identity

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Past-Present-Future, Time Traveller

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

I can be whimsical, even quirky in some poems. Some readers enjoy this, some hate it while it would appear that yet others can even feel inspired.

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2008. I have been asked to repeat it by ‘Angela’ who has been in touch to say, ‘...it inspired [me] to start tracing [my] family tree, with such amazing results that I am now passionately into genealogy.’

Good luck with that, Angela.

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, TIME TRAVELLER

One day I visited a churchyard
looking for a gravestone;
I found it, but only after hours
foraging among weeds;
I knelt down and cleared away
years of moss and grime;
in time, I could even make out
a legend, dates, a name

I felt cold, cheated, no feelings
of compassion for the dead;
here lay a total stranger, albeit
of my family line (so what?);
it filled a box on the family tree;
the rest, but photographs,
letters, and a diary with pages
faded or missing

I’d found what I was looking for
so why linger there?
I tried to leave. My legs refused
to do as I wanted;
I couldn’t move, even after a few
conspiratorial drops of rain;
then the stone opened like a door,
and I needed no telling

I entered, began feeling my way
along a gloomy tunnel;
in a light at the end stood a man,
his features obscured;
as I closed in, he spoke. I strained
to hear a choked voice
saying it was ages since anyone
had sought him out

He said I had the family likeness
and it meant a lot to see;
then he was gone and I was left
staring at a gravestone;
that day I visited a churchyard
looking for family,
I found it, and was infinitely
glad I’d come

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008