Partners for Life

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

“The great thing about getting older is that you become much more mellow. Things aren’t as much black and white and you become much more tolerant. You can see the good things much more easily… “  - Maeve Binchy 

“Aging is not uncomplicated. Creativity is an extraordinary help against destructive demons.” - Ingmar Bergman

“We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.” - Deepak Chopra

“The ordinary experiences of aging alter and clarify your view of past, present, and future.” - Edith Pearlman

Now, many if not most of us have to cope with various health issues as we grow old(er). Never easy. The trick is not to let it obscure our perspective on the bright(er) side of life, especially as it is reflected in the kinder side of human nature

PARTNERS FOR LIFE

Growing old,
quality of life much the poorer
just for that, barely 
in touch with a mind-body-spirit
often losing its way
among mixed feelings forever open
to misinterpretation,
of positive thoughts persistently overtaken
by naggings of disillusion?

Looking back
over some shadowy shoulder
at inspiring dreams
left unfulfilled like litter on the streets
where I have lived,
expecting more of a Here-and-Now
than it was able to give,
left wondering what Time may yet yield me
other than... a lonely eternity?

Alternative voices,
familiar enough to any heart-and-soul
having had to rise above
such negative thoughts as sure to haunt
even a positive thinker
whenever life take a turn for the worse,
(as often as not)
tasking us with the greater art of being human,
in starting over, yes, yet again

Oh, mind-and body!
unable to win through, but for letting in
and partnering a native spirit
defying description, invariably taking its cue
from a natural world
no less under threat than a heart-and-soul
continuing to be inspired,
forever working through stages of regeneration;
come mind-body-spirit, in unison.

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2023

[Note: I have been very unwell, but  working on another post-poem has contributed, in no small measure, to my starting to feel a lot better and more positive about looking on the bright(er) side of life...😉 Oh, and I hope some of you will have enjoyed browsing the post-poems in the blog archives during my absence, and will continue to do so.] RT

 

Highs and Lows

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

"Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change."  - Thomas Hardy 

" Life is your see-saw. You may not stay balanced long, but you can aim for a high after every low. Sanita Belgrave

"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains." - Tennessee Williams

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks”. - Plutarch“

Now, most, if not all of us, get to experience the highs and lows of life as we progress; anyone, at any age, from any walk of life. At the time, the lows may well seem insurmountable, but trust the human spirit to see us through, and see us through, it invariably well, all the kinder and quicker with the love of and help from those who care about us. Whatever, like it or not, life is a learning process; we can learn and progress or be in denial and risk being unable to move on…

Common sense, do I hear you say; nothing new, heard it all before…? Almost certainly, yes, and definitely from yours truly. Even so, knowing something and acting on it are two sides of the same coin, as we all know only too well. To be sure, we may flip the coin and it gives the wrong message. Ah, but if, even just a part of us recognizes that it is not answer to our problem, we need to trust heart-and-soul to message mind-body-spirit to…flip the darn coin again, and again… until it comes up with what it senses is the right message. Thereafter, we can feel confident about confronting our problem/s and working them through to a kinder end than when we first flipped the coin… and be reassured that, if things take a turn for the worse at any stage, we can always blame it on that old standby ‘fate’… wry bardic chuckle

Many a time have I tossed that coin and, many a time, blamed ‘fate’ for not helping me bring whatever mess I happen to be in to a hastier, more ‘successful’ conclusion. But… success, of course, is relative and getting out of whatever mess we may have fallen into - invariably down to ourselves, however inadvertently, from start to finish - well, that’s a successful outcome, and don’t let anyone tell you any differently who may have judged you for getting into a mess in the first place.😉

Creative therapy, in any shape or form, is a sure way to help us sort our thoughts, give us a new, more positive perspective on life. How can I be sure? Why else do you think I have turned to writing – especially poetry – since schooldays…?  I may not be famous, in any ‘celebrity’ sense, but, believe you me, having reached my late 70’s is a personal success story. We all have them, it’s as my mother once told schoolboy Roger, on my failing an important exam: “That’s what life is all about, dear, picking yourself up and starting all over again.” 

 I didn’t ‘get it’ then, and was sceptical, to say the least, but I certainly ‘get it’ now! wry bardic grin

HIGHS AND LOWS

It’s our early years
that help shape the rest of our lives
taking on perceptions
of family and friends, wondering where
and why a rainbow ends,
open to such fairy tale explanations
as will lay the foundations
of a worldly rhetoric appearing to offer answers
that leave us asking more questions

In our middle years,
we stand at a crossroads in our lives
taking decisions,
learning about their consequences, taking
responsibility for them
(or not, as the case may be) mixed feelings
throwing us into a confusion
we can shrug off, prepare to bluff our way through
or put mind-body-spirit under review

In our later years,
we may look back with anger, regret, 
even degrees of shame
for paths unwisely taken, mistakes 
haunting mind-body-spirit,
yet comfort, too, for heart-and-soul’s capacity
for learning from them all,
nurturing personal space, the wiser and more mature
for the nature of its past-present-future

For better or worse, in brush strokes on a live canvas,
find home truths that are the be-alls and end-alls of us 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022 

The Lilac Tree, no Fairy Tale

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

“I’ve not much interest in the important things of life. Only in the beautiful things. Just” this lilac here makes me happy. – Erich Maria Remarque (Three Comrades)

“The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.” – Margaret Millar

“Philosophy: A purple bullfinch in a lilac tree.” – T. S. Eliot

There was, indeed, a lilac tree in the garden of the house where I was born in Gillingham (Kent); true, too, it was still there when I made a point of passing that way during recovery from a mental breakdown in the 1970’s. True, also, that its fragrance filled me then, as it always has and always will, with the life force that is hope; for every blind alley, a kinder alternative.

THE LILAC TREE, NO FAIRY TALE

Once upon a time,
a lilac tree grew in the garden
of the very house
where I was born, lived and played
with friends and family,
would see birds and butterflies attracted
by its fragrance in full bloom,
extending a poetry of spring into early summer,
memories to treasure

Come winter, pruning
would bring tears to the eyes
of family and friends,
less hardy than the little lilac tree,
more vulnerable
for having to weather less-than-kind
ways of the world, eager to give it
a fighting chance to thrive, stay safe, be strong,
lend us a focus for living

Grown old and weary,
yet no less spirited for all that,
a whim took me treading
an alleyway in time and personal space
to the same garden gate
of the very house where I was born,
first felt the fragrance of lilac
encouraging heart-and-soul to weather whatever
in nature and human nature

In one corner of a stranger’s garden, I can still see
my lilac tree, sweet smell of eternity

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

Frontliners

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All those in the front line of our war on Covid-19 deserve our thanks, respect and admiration. How they cope, day after day, defies belief. I have been retired for 10 years now, but like to think I would have played my part, although I suspect few of us know how we would react to certain circumstances until they are upon us and we are tested.

My father and I did not get along. From childhood, he never believed I had a hearing problem. More   than once would send me to my room for ‘ignoring’ him when I genuinely hadn’t known he was talking to me. Needless to say, this did nothing to improve our relationship. “He’s weak!” I heard him shout at my mother once, “He’s weak, that’s his trouble. Always got his head stuck in a book, it’s high time he started acting like a boy instead of a bloody pansy.”

Later, I asked my mother, “Am I weak?” Her reply was typical of her grasp of human nature. “None of us really know our true strengths and weaknesses,” she said, “… until they and we are tested. Even then,” she sighed, “… it’s invariably left to others to judge and we alone ourselves to know. It’s called life,” she added with a rueful smile. “But just you go to sleep and put it out of your mind…” She turned off the lamp I had been reading by, and I could have sworn I heard her say, “…while you still can.”

I suspect we are tested at all stages in our lives although we may not realise it at the time. As we grow up and grow older, though, we do get to know ourselves, although how much is fact and how much is wishful thinking … that’s for us to take on board, reject or work through for ourselves, hopefully with more than a little help from loved-ones and friends.

Whatever our battles, we are the front line, win some, lose some…

FRONTLINERS 

War or peace,
whatever the cause in us demanding
we fight,
at the end of the day, it needs to be
for the better,
if only to keep us safe , drive any enemy
to rout 

Early years,
learning to talk, walks, laugh and play,
choose friends
come to recognize certain aspects
of behaviour…
as in where our empathising with it begins
and ends 

Schooldays,
inviting us to see how competition
demands
targets our strengths and weaknesses, requires
we stand up
for its rights and wrongs or go to ground, head
in hands 

Come, youth
to have its day, before such times ahead
as we know
will test us, even cut us down before any gain
or losses
can take us where we may (or not) have chosen
to go 

Middle years,
basking in sunny climes or sheltering
from storms
beyond anticipation for our underestimating
how maturity
may yet see us bested by any variety of tempting
life forms 

Old age,
a final reckoning of sorts, for the better
or worse
as we harvest all mind-body-spirit has incited us
to be, urging us
do whatever may yet see all or some of our parts rest
in peace

 “Advance, friend or foe,” finding out wherever we go,
ourselves to know 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Word to the Wise

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

Some parents, especially mothers, so love their friends' children to be the best of friends. Mine was anxious to know why I had all but ignored a friend's son - a fellow pupil at my primary school - during a recent visit to their house, not far from where we lived. I recall shrugging and putting it to her that the other boy and I had nothing in common, unlike our respective parents. "I don't dislike him," I tried to explain, "... so much as, well, he's so different from me. We like different things and have little if anything in common so...what's the point?" "It's up to you, of course," my mother conceded, "...but there's a lot we can learn from each other's differences. Unfortunately, it's our differences that make the world the way it is rather than any willingness to learn from them." I shrugged off those words at the time, but they came back to haunt me at bedtime and have haunted me ever since.

Needless to say, we became good mates, that boy and me and, yes, we did learn a lot from each other even if it did take us awhile to agree to differ about (many) things without getting personal. We were never best friends, but always enjoyed each other's company. Indeed, when I finally came out to family and friends as a gay man, he was one of the first to say it made no difference, even quoting yours truly in so far as to suggest that our differences do not make us different, only human.

A WORD TO THE WISE

Where did they all go,
days of childhood, where freedom
kept its word, any concerns
easily distracted by an enthusiasm
for new thing, new people
new avenues of thought less littered
with a narrow-mindedness
all too often found characterising
adulthood found wanting?

Where did they all go,
those days of emerging maturity
less fettered by the cares
and concerns of everyday survival.
still in the welcome grip
of curiosity, a sense of adventure,
an idealism tested
and found increasingly vulnerable
in as so-changing world?

Whatever happened
to halcyon days of early adulthood,
few leftover laurels
seen floating floods of opposition,
rejection and humiliation
touching base with needy conscience
and self-awareness, inciting
a rebel consciousness to explore ways
to make itself felt and heard?

Whatever happened
to that rebel in me, thinking to change
a world whose imperfections
are glossed over by a well-meaning
global consciousness, yet out
of touch with a common humanity
increasingly sensitive
to its much-divided politics and religions
all claiming to have answers?

No prescribed wisdom ever made less sense
than in any Here-and-Now


Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

[Note: This poem also appears on my gay-interest blog today.]

Innocent, Until Proven Human (As Defined by Rites of Conscience)

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I once saw a foal and a child born at different times of the same day. One had no conscience and would remain a picture of innocence until its slaughter for human convenience; the other would soon become wise to the ways of the world and learn to manipulate them … one way or another.

INNOCENT, UNTIL PROVEN HUMAN (AS DEFINED BY RITES OF CONSCIENCE)

Every birth, a celebration,
history redeeming
the very nature of creation

At break of day, an ovation
for each living thing;
every birth, a celebration

From its time of hibernation,
a glorious spring;
the very nature of creation

At the heart of every season,
find love enduring;
every birth, a celebration

If history pauses for no one,
find in its evolving,
the very nature of creation

Seeds of a world’s salvation
here for the nurturing;
at every birth, celebration,
the very nature of creation

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2015