Art Forms, Life Forces

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

“A picture is a poem without words”. - Horace

“Creativity is intelligence having fun” – Albert Einstein

“Art enables us to find and lose ourselves at the same time. “– Thomas Merton

The first time my mother took me to the National Gallery on a day visit to London, I could see by her expressions that she was so engaged with the art work on display that I had the strangest sense that I had all but ceased to exist for her.

Later, she asked if I had enjoyed the paintings.  I said I had, yes, but “...most of then sort of made my head swim...”, I confessed.

 “And did your head enjoy the swim?” she asked with an engaging smile.

I didn’t understand the question, but an inner self prompted me to say, “Yes, I did,”

“We’ll make an artist of you yet then...”, she laughed.

I laughed, too, not least because art was but one of many subjects throughout my schooldays at which I was considered hopeless, although I always enjoyed having a go...

More than half a century on, I continue to enjoy art forms, engaging with them as intimately as I would a close friend with whom there is, more often than not, no need for words to express pleasure in each other’s company, mutually intuitive mind-body-spirits enough. For the life of me, I cannot explain why; if asked, I would probably lose my way among mixed feelings of which I could barely scratch the surface even in a poem.

Do I consider any of my poems great works of art? I suspect few if any critics would say so, and I would be inclined to agree, but do I regret writing them? Not at all for they are who I am, love me or leave me.

Whatever, for me, personally - as regular readers well know - poetry is a form of creative therapy without which my quality of life, as I grow old and contend with various health issues, would be very much the poorer.

ART FORMS, LIFE FORCES

Art forms depicting nature,
are but inviting us to reach out
and embrace it

Similarly, life forces reflecting
various shades of mind-body-spirit,
take us forward - or to the edge
of crisis, making of us a punchbag
for mixed feelings to fret over and try
to reason the how and why

Art forms depicting nature
can but encourage us to reach out
an embrace it

Similarly, life forces reflecting
the ups and downs of everyday life,
demand we confront them
or risk losing sight of rights of way,
for an ever-thickening fog of self-pity,
enduring bane of humanity

Art forms depicting nature
can but pose questions we prefer
to ignore or defer

Similarly, life forces reflecting
the proactive mind-body-spirit urges
heart and soul to rise above all
that’s threatening its very survival,
to reset, restart, revisit such motivation
as driven to all but annihilation

Art forms enable Earth Mother
to so engage with human nature
as to shape its future

All nature and human nature
resists reproduction in quite the way
art forms may choose to portray,
but for a common denominator asking
that we engage with such senses as native
to us all – a will to live and let live 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022