My Mentor is a Tree

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

Today’ poem is not strictly autobiographical, but the story it tells is one to which I could only too easily relate when told me by a friend many years ago; apart from having taken some poetic license, I tell it here much as it was told to me then. 

“Courage is fire, bullying is smoke.” Benjamin Disraeli 

There is no shame in asking for help. Nor is it ‘grassing’ to expose a bully, just common sense. You might even be doing them a favour; anyone shown the error of their ways stands a good chance of becoming a better person. 

It is not only children who get bullied, of course.  Here in the UK, a National Bullying Helpline offers help and advice regarding bullying in the workplace, bullying at school and online harassment; details online.

 

 MY MENTOR IS A TREE 

A local park, solitary tree
child looking up who should be
at school;
Tall, grown old, branches
reaching out by way of expressing
mixed feelings 

Small and sad, schoolboy
crying over a family photograph,
takes a penknife
to scratch a tell-tale heart
on rough bark, rain clouds closing in,
world growing dark 

Tree submits - no defence
against human nature when all’s
said and done;
Child climbs, terra out mind,
bully-fear soon starting to fall away
like autumn 

A hovering skylark lets out a cry
to chicks-in-the nest making ready
to fly...
Tears for Mum, Dad, and pal
teddy bear as well, but ready to leap
into freefall 

Earth Mother whispers in an ear,
“Look! Beyond a runny nose, a way
to live, FREE
of bully-fear. Tell someone,
then see the rats, how they do run,
their turn...  

So, I did just that, found a voice
to tell family and school, bullies outed
and humiliated,
all inhumanity but heading for a fall
once mind-body-spirit reasons ways to get
the better of it. 

It’s still there, the tree. Sometimes,
I revisit, whenever alien forces dragging
me down;
Sometimes, too, a skylark joins us,
with a peace song for all nature’s children
of whom I’m one  

Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2021

 

[Note: The origin of this poem is ‘Heaven Can Wait’ that I wrote in 1998 and which appears in my first collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; it would be incorrect to call it a ‘revised’ version as I have made substantial changes, so have chosen not to use the same title.] RT