Destination, By-and-By

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Today's poem started out with me revising a poem to which I had given the title Strangers on a Train; the original written in 1994, it appeared on the blog once, but has since disappeared. However, as I progressed with the 'revision', the poem took on a new life of its own and became an altogether different poem to the one I was working on, ceasing to be a revised version at all.

While creating the poem, a conversation I had recently overheard in a supermarket  came to mind. Two woman were discussing a mutual friend who had apparently "been round the block a few times" and been married three times although  it appears the third time was to her first husband. "Can you believe it? the couple were asking, "It makes a mockery of marriage, love too..."

Could I believe it? Oh, yes, I could. Human nature is called upon to adapt to all kinds of changes in circumstances as time passes; some of us adapt to these changes, others don't, won't or can't. reason the need.

Any change in circumstances invariably results in changes in our behaviour, for better or worse; such changes mat well only be temporary, maybe not. Just as we need to adapt so, too, we ask that others will adapt accordingly, bear our new circumstances in mind and, hopefully, make allowances where  appropriate; it can sometimes  be a lot to ask of family, friends, work colleagues; some of whom will prove understanding and supportive while others will rush to judgement and  waste no time making their opinions known... 

My mother told me much the same thing once. When the boy, Roger, asked why that should be so, she simply sighed and said, "Such are the vagaries of life and human nature, dear..." to which my only response at the age of about 11 years was to ask what the word' 'vagaries' meant!  With hindsight, 60+ years on, I would have done better to have pursued the matter in hand, if only because it may well  have better prepared me for the many faces of adult life, warts 'n' all...

As regular readers will know, I was in my early 30's before I came out to everyone as a gay man after years of only partly feeling alive in a closet that, yes, was self-imposed, but many false and misleading stereotypes  - and the many, many people I knew taken in by them -  had, I thought, left me no choice.

Ah, but there is always a choice. The tragedy is that human nature is often inclined to make mountains of making right or wrong choices for the right or wrong reasons; a greater tragedy, perhaps, is that some of us are not good climbers... ?

DESTINATION, BY-AND-BY

Met someone on a train,
(years ago, seems but yesterday)
heading away from things,
places and people held dear,
nor less so for Fate
come knocking on my door
taking me for a fool, leading me on,
the more so for letting you in

I told myself it was a devil
on my shoulder, urging me bolder,
especially as I grew older,
felt a need to show the world
I’m not afraid of it,
playing deaf-blind to inner ear
and eye, inclined to re-invent the truth
about the vagaries of youth

So, we danced all night long
and the devil on my shoulder sang
“To hell with what’s right
or wrong... We have but one life,
let’s have some fun,
and where’s the harm in that?”
None,” said I, always up for the chance
of its embracing romance

Romance, indeed, would see us
rise, fall and rise again as life saw fit
to deal us blows, make-up kisses,
and also-rans, as many mixed feelings
as lively passions
keeping us together, leading us astray
our hearts leaning on and loving each other,
home truths at odds with one another

Ah, but inevitably, a dark winter
of the heart sure to miss out on spring,
never to watch Apollo
bring trees to leaf again, flowers to bloom,
smiles to human faces
for giving high hopes their head,
despite Fate’s taking liberties with any of us
defying even the Spirit of Togetherness

At a loss after our last farewell,
so caught the first train to Anywhere;
a stranger (oddly familiar)
caught my eye, listened to my life history,
empathised (without resorting
to platitudes) urging I learn to live
even love again, the face in a train window
of that same You-Me-Us I’d got to know

Emerging from a long tunnel, Face and I
our Fate, promised to Apollo bye-and-by

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021