More of the Same (Unless, What ... ?)

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

[Update, December 31st 2018: I hope  you all enjoy my posts and poems as  much as I enjoy writing them. I have not been in good health for some years, and at 73 there's neither time nor room for much improvement. Even so, I keep looking on the bright side of life. The blogs distract me from the likes of prostate cancer and arthritis, and help me to feel more in touch with the world since I've been less able to get out and about in it. A huge thank you to everyone for staying with me; the sum total of pageviews for both poetry blogs has now passed 300,000.]

Here’s a BIG thank you to all my readers. When I started writing up the blogs, I hoped to reach a few thousand people, but both blogs have now had 53,000+ pageviews since Google started collecting statistics in May 2010; feedback suggests many of these are regular readers.

Christmas, light years away already. Let us hope 2014 will be a better year for us all. Sadly, for many of us, I doubt whether it will feel much like we are emerging from recession and hardship for some months, even years yet.

All we can do is find a bright side and focus on that as we try to make the best of things rather than dwell on the worst. Despite having to contend with regular bouts of depression, it is something I have always tried to do…with varying degrees of success (and failure).

Did I say it was easy?

May we all find peace and love...this year, and always...keeping mind and heart open to all things and all people.[Well, as far as some people will let us anyway.]

MORE OF THE SAME (UNLESS, WHAT ... ?)

A new year beckons across the sad remains

of a Christmas past its use-by date,

discarded wrapping paper a pretty metaphor

for token gestures, world over

Our shame, its magic fading, oh, so quickly

to an everyday ordinariness;

(they fade too soon, the laughter and songs

of a world coming together.)

Even so, the frailest things may last forever

once touched by love;

so say bodies living (and dying) on our streets

here, there, world over ...

Wherever a heart beats in time with another

love will find a way

(even if means heaping starker choices upon us

than any Holy Books ... ?)

Needs must, recycling pretty wrapping paper

and tearing a strip off humanity

whenever it fails to teach its children respect

for our differences, world over

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012