Hi folks, from London UK (3)

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

Hi Folks,

No poem today, but I m working on one. Meanwhile, a  reader, J.M.  has emailed to ask How I cope with the prostate cancer as he is not managing his very well. Regular readers will know that  the subject has been raised before... Even so, I empathise with J. M, and how! 

 My consultant advised me at the start (in 2012) that prostate cancer has a mind of its own, and she was so right. I have hormone treatment with zoladex injections abut every 18 months, and I often get little sleep for having to get up so often during the night to let my bladder have its wicked way with me. 😉 Even so, I take each day as it comes, try to make the best of things and not dwell on the negatives.  I don't really have any tips, except to say that DIET can help a LOT (I try to be vegan, while straying from time to time (e.g. I love fish occasionally) while still eating as healthily as possible by at least keeping to vegetarian alternatives.

Another reader asks about my perceptive deafness, a subject I have also tried to answer as best  can previously. She wonders if her son might also be similarly deaf.  She doesn't give his age, but, if he hasn't done so already, I urge her to ask her local GP to arrange for him to see an ear specialist asap. 

Perceptive deafness is not uncommon, nor is it easy to identify; at home and at school, it was invariably assumed that I wasn't paying attention when, in fact, I was struggling to hear correctly. Perceptive or "pitch" deafness, means that  how much the person hears another person depends on the pitch of the latter's voice. Local acoustics also come into play; for example, I might hear a person fairly well in one location, but barely at all in another. Growing up with perceptive deafness was a nightmare until I was finally diagnosed and issued with hearing aids especially made to help with perceptive deafness. (All the while I was growing up, I had to cope without hearing aids at all.)

Oh, one learns to cope with perceptive deafness and the various misunderstandings it causes between one's family and friends; most people are sympathetic and understanding when one explains.  It is so easy to forget, though, as many people do... and continue to take offence when I don't respond appropriately (as they see it) to whatever it is they are telling me. Essentially a people-person, I have tended to avoid people - especially groups - over many years now; I understand that people forget, but have grown weary of repeating myself by way of trying to explain. Mind you, in the kind of digitalised world we live in these days, it is only too easy to misread and take offence where none is meant. If  beauty (or otherwise) is in the eye of the beholder, so (all too often) is meaning. 

Ah, but spring is in the air here in the UK, leaves and blossom are appearing on trees and songbirds are passing on a joie de vivre such as we haven't felt for a long time due to the ravages of Covid-19. Society is beginning to open up again, safety precautions relaxed as the vaccination program here remains in full swing. There is, indeed, cause for cautious optimism, news of coronavirus mutations notwithstanding.  While our hearts reach out to those still suffering the effects of coronavirus around the world, we are reminded that there are so many people so much worse off than ourselves in so many different ways; all the more reason to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life, count our blessings instead of dwelling on our woes, and trust that a sense of joie de vivre will prevail (if only for embracing the Spirit of Love - in all its shapes and forms - even when it seems in short supply.😉

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Take care, folks, many thanks for dropping by, and I'll be back with a poem soon.

Hugs,

Roger

Butterflies, Catching the Light

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

This poem first appeared on the blog in 2013; it was inspired by a lovely lady who fought cancer and won a reprieve of several years before it finally caught up with her. One summer, she told me that, if it was to be her last, she would enjoy it to the full, not content to simply pass through like a butterfly, but with every intention of seeing out another autumn … winter … and spring … 

Indeed, no passing butterfly, she, but a true Child of the Earth. When I was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in February 2011, she was and continues to be my inspiration.

To all those having to endure cancer any any other illness, we can but take a tip from the butterflies and make the most of any light in our lives while we can; hopefully, it will inspire us to beat any odds against us and see more of our seasons through ... and never underestimate the power of the human spirit to let us do just that.  As regular readers know, I am not a religious person except in so far as I am a pantheist, but no religion has a monopoly on spirituality, and it's that which inspires the life force in me that, in turn, invariably inspires my poems.

BUTTERFLIES, CATCHING THE LIGHT

Why think of dying on a lovely

summer’s day?

Not a cloud in the sky; birds full

of mischief and joy;

a scarecrow swinging in a breeze,

making us dizzy;

children laughing at grown-ups

too busy blowing on

dandelion clocks to care how

the young may

perceive the rapture of one foolish

moment, finer by far

than capturing a rare butterfly;

light in the eye

like a spread of buttery sunshine

on bald spots 

in the hair, token of forever things;

Peace, Hope,

wings of a kind, like words a child

might find

once tucked into bed and favourite

stories read;

heavens, in perfect harmony with

greenest pastures

though a cancer in the body catch

us unawares

to keep, like the rarest butterflies,

on display

Why think of dying on a lovely

summer’s day?

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004]