Perspectives

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

Hello, everyone, from London UK

“The more important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself”. – Gore Vidal

“There will always be enemies. Time to stop being your own.” – Larry Kramer

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin

“I’d rather burn in hell than worship an anti-gay God.” – Desmond Tutu

Now, although some readers have objected to any gay-interest poems that I post here now and then as well as on my other poetry blog, I could not refuse a reader who simply signs his email as ‘a caring dad’. He says he has good reason to suspect that one of his sons may be gay, and doesn’t want him to live ‘in some lonely closet’. Having read a selection of poems on my gay blog, he asks that I post another here as the son in question is a regular visitor, since which he “...has come close to acknowledging his sexuality to himself and everyone else...”  

Well, good luck, dad, and if, indeed, your son is gay, I wish you both a far closer relationship that I was ever able to share with my own father.

As I keep telling readers who chance upon my gay blog (more often than not by accident than design) most of my gay-specific poems are in the blog archives, so do, take a look sometime. I will be 77 years old this year and, not unsurprisingly, no longer sexually active, especially after living with prostate cancer for a good ten years now; hence, a failing inspiration with regard to poetry that embraces LGBT matters.😉

Having said that, though, my main interest in writing any poem is that poetry like any art form, excludes no one. Besides, I may be growing old, but I still have the mind-body-spirit of a gay man; nor does being of any LGBT persuasion, exclude us from such universal thought processes and opinions as reflected in this and that ethos throughout history.

Now, as I have said on previous posts, over the years, I 've met a significant number of people - from all walks of life and religion - who have been made to feel they must choose between communing with a native sense of spirituality and engaging with desires of the flesh. To anyone from any community, this would have taken them into a state of crisis during the 1950’s when I was growing up; a post-war society that saw same sex relationships as a crime against God and nature. Prejudice against LGBT folks in those days was so intense that we lived in fear of being 'outed' and subsequently getting beaten up or worse...

As any regular reader of either or both of my poetry blogs will know, it was not until my early 30’s that I finally saw my way clear to face the world as a gay man. I have openly supported LGBT rights ever since; hopefully, the ranks of heterosexual men and women who feel able to do likewise  will continue to grow... 

God, I had been told, time and again, is a God of Love. Love, of course, comes in many shapes and forms and I came to believe that love between two people of the same sex would not - contrary to the religious dogma in which I had been all but brainwashed for years - be considered a blasphemy likely to send me to Hell.  By then, too, I had discovered for myself how we can so easily be misled into creating our own Heaven and Hell here on Earth, in such ways as are anything but metaphorical...!

Prejudice of any description, towards anyone, is as much of an affront to human dignity as it has always been. Now, though, relatively slowly but surely, common sense, fairness and an equality deserving of a common humanity are filtering through to the more enlightened societies and communities worldwide; that many, if not most of these are among the more secularly inclined, does not and should not be seen as attitudes toward a native spirituality being in the decline.   

No religion has a monopoly on a person’s sense of spirituality nor the right to dictate this or that theological agenda, whatever certain Holy Books have to say on the matter.

As I have said many times on the blogs, I have every respect for anyone’s sincerely held religious faith just as I would ask them to respect my right to find my own way in life, love, and spiritual well-being.

PERSPECTIVES

As age takes its toll of me,
I look back in anger
at schooldays long, long ago,
when I’d dread anyone
should know my secret shame,
as nurtured by societies,
within such as I, a taboo as few
(then) dared call by name, fearing abuse,
left with but Hobson’s choice

Secrets, though will fester,
drive mind-body-spirit
all but mad for suppressing
such love as flowered
within such as I, to which denial
from heart and soul
but falls on deaf ears, until a time
natural instinct insists it no longer ignore
a roar, growing ever louder

The first time I ventured
into the landscape
some religions would condemn
as a unpardonable,
I was trembling for the sheer dread
my God would strike me
dead where I stood,
waiting on a stranger to come, set me free,
if only temporarily, to be ME

We exchanged few words,
that stranger and I,
as we shared a mind-body-spirit
risen to the occasion,
on wings that would be clipped
by certain powers that be
who fear, above all, an individuality
asserting itself, no whim, but once and for all
over the human heart and soul

Time passed, as time will do,
ageing mind-body-spirit
grown weary of showing masks
to a world feeding
on stereotypes, passing off its vanity
as concerns for a humanity
driven by such sure historical agendas
as would see it sign up
to God-fearing behaviour, dogma and faiths
outlawing same sex relationships

Mind-body-spirit, though, asks
more of any society
or religion, increasingly less content
to go free but now and then,
seeking out such resources of its own
as would have it go
mask-free into the world, show its face,
defy any powers that be
hell bent on taking all prejudice and hypocrisy
into yet another deaf-blind century

As generations come and go,
so, too, young people
with minds of their own, less inclined
to be browbeaten,
even during their formative years,
by agenda and/or dogma
as would capture a free mind-body-spirit
with such ideas as may suppress a natural empathy
with a sense of common humanity...

Each to their own sense of right
and wrong, no matter
from where, how or even whom it comes,
entitled not to budge,
but not so as to judge others by standards
adapted to suit themselves,
however well-intentioned they may be
to save humanity from such plots by persons unknown
as likely as not to deny it salvation

To each, though, our own perspective on personal space,
defining its You-Me-Us, by God’s grace

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

One of Us

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

An English teacher at my secondary school, way back in the 1950's, once commented that ‘It is not the size of a tree but its perfect beauty that makes us feel small and aware of our imperfections, as nature intended.’ I remember that comment some 50+ years on while I have forgotten most if not all the curriculum he ever taught.

Deforestation and the removal of trees for property development worldwide is a sacrilege against nature, but not untypical of human shortsightedness, its being a hugely significant factor in saving us from climate change ...  and ourselves?  A rowing world population mean more affordable housing and this, in turn, requires the land on which to build them. Even so, we must never forget that we need trees for our protection and our mental health in the sense that they are inspiring features of any landscape; their natural beauty can help us stay on top of everyday life at times when we can barely summon the strength and willpower to get through it. 

Regular readers will know that I suffered a bad nervous breakdown way back in the 1970's; it was walking among trees in a local park that played a significant part in my recovery. Since then, I have feared a relapse and sought inspiration from various aspects of nature every single day, simply as a human being who also happens to be a poet.; it has worked, and I cope with stress better than I have ever done.

“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
- J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings)

'When the axe came into the forest, the trees said “The handle is one of us.' Turkish proverb.

Yes, oh, yes, the human mind-body-spirit need our trees ... and not just for axe handles.

ONE OF US or BURY THE LEAVES, SAVE THE TREES 

Splendid tree, shades

of green caught up in combat

with a rising insurgency;

patched-up leaves, shades

of red under relentless attack

from native forces

Branches, groaning

for knowing limitations placed

on input and outcome;

canny leaves, anticipating 

Big Combo, taking advantage

of cloud cover

Falling leaves, piling

at the feet of a parent tree

left to watch and weep;

dying leaves, with more

to offer than a half blind Earth

living with heart failure

Dead leaves, poultices

for wounds News editors

will use for headlines;

splendid tree, hopes pinned

on its surgeon, anticipating spring,

and home birds returning

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010, 2020

[Note: An earlier version of today’s poem under the title 'Bury the Leaves, Save the Trees' was first  published in Poetry Rivals: A New Dawn Breaks, Forward Press, 2010 an subsequently in my collection, Tracking the Torchbearer, Assembly Books, 2012.]