A unique Species of Rose

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

[Update: 11/7/2020: I am often criticised for rarely using full stops at the end of stanzas; fair enough, but I see a poem (like life and time) as a continuum; it is meant to give the reader food for thought; for much the same reason, I often hyphenate words to bring them together, such as yesterday-today-tomorrow in the poem below. Hopefully, the reader will continue to consider the implications and relation to the poem’s theme/s long after they have forgotten the poem itself.] RT

In the closing scenes of a classic movie Gone with the Wind - based on a novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell - its heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, magnificently portrayed by Vivien Leigh, briefly considers confronting some uncomfortable home truths before backing out with the immortal words, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

How many of us, I wonder, have told ourselves much the same thing, and for how many of us has that changed much, if anything …?

Me? As guilty as sin … as are most if not all of us.

Meanwhile, while time passes and, for the most part, poor, misunderstood humanity persists in pausing at the brink of self-awareness … if only to excuse this or that course of action (or inaction) should it ever be called to account.  

Time, marking the days that come and go in our lives, may well be much the same for everyone; it is how we choose to nurture those days (or not, as the case may be) that makes them unique for each and every one of us, whoever and wherever. Raison d'être, too, is unique, to every individual even in shared circumstances like relationships; I dare say the world would be a better, kinder, place if only we were (all) to remember that, more often, especially those among us - in all walks of life - inclined to rush to judgement.

“It’s the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important…" 

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A UNIQUE SPECIES OF ROSE

Yesterday, I’d traverse deserts,

goaded by false images to kneel and drink

from oases of illusion

Yesterday, I’d climb leafy trees

browse the words of ancient philosophers

in passing clouds

Yesterday, I’d swim in the oceans,

bear witness to creatures choking to death

on human waste

Today, I’ll try to pass on something

of lessons learned by the mind-body-spirit

in poetry and prose

Today, I’ll try stirring cloth ears

all but glued to mobile phones into hearing

global warnings

Today, I’d do an Internet search

for answers to questions ever plaguing me,

but, alas, no wi-fi

Tomorrow, I’ll join other nomads

(still) misled by fake news, kneeling to drink

from oases of delusion

Tomorrow, I’ll ask the few trees left

how Earth Mother might have had us comply

had we but listened …?

Tomorrow, I’ll start thinking of ways

to prevent stereotypes slamming down the lid

of the box they put me in

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, live streams

of consciousness calling on Earth to reconcile

nature and human nature

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, last spotted

sailing under false colours where imagination

having settle for cast-offs

Yesterday-today-tomorrow, making hay

in the sunshine, world clocks winding us up

and down, up and down ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

The Rose OR Answering to Autumn

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I recall writing today’s little poem in 2003 after pausing to admire a rose in someone’s garden.

My mother loved roses, as did my late partner. Both died many years ago. They never met, yet here I was bringing them together in my thoughts, years on. How strange and sometimes incredibly moving that memories can be triggered, as if my magic, by the slightest thing, past and present fitting perfectly into each other like pieces of a jigsaw.

Will I ever be a perfect fit into someone’s jigsaw, I wondered…? And what will the complete jigsaw look like, mine or anyone else’s …?

It is no coincidence, I suspect, that the trigger for such thoughts, and indeed a poem, should embrace such visions of the heart as beauty, peace, and love.

THE ROSE or ANSWER ING TO AUTUMN

See them, one by one, 

petals falling away,

discarded by autumn, 
remains of our day

We helped it to grow,

nurtured its blooms

at time's open window

on ageless dreams

While winter keeps

no flower in view,

the rose, it but sleeps

in my love for you

Dreams, one by one.
petals falling away,
answering to autumn,
remains of our day.

Copyright R N Taber 2004, 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004, rev.. 2014.]

In Praise of Lacework

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Regular readers will also know that it is now more than three years since an MRI scan revealed a growth in my prostate. A biopsy revealed it was cancerous. However, the cancer was diagnosed as non-aggressive and regular hormone therapy continues (so far) to keep it from becoming so.  Meanwhile, I can only do what I have done since early childhood and trust nature to do its best by me.

I take great pleasure and reassurance from gentle strolls on nearby Hampstead Heath; its quiet grassy slopes and lively pockets of trees; signs and sounds of the seasons as they come and go; glittering ponds alive with the chatter of ducks, swans, and moorhens...

Since I came to live in the Kentish Town area of London nearly 30 years ago, I have often gone to the Heath with a view to letting its sensual beauty invade my senses, experience that ‘Oh, but it’s so good to be alive!’ feeling with which Earth Mother has sustained me through just about every crisis in my life; even when I attempted suicide during an extended period of severe mental breakdown some 30 years ago, she brought me back from the brink.

My late mother used to urge me to ‘listen for, watch and learn from nature.’ Moreover, ‘Far better,’ she’d say. ‘...to retreat into nature than into yourself.’ That was many years ago and her words ring as true to me now (at 68) as they did when I was a child.

In the language of flowers, the yellow rose is for remembrance.  (See also my poem, The Zen of Yellow Roses) Yes, I often look back at happier times in my life and those who made it so, and feel inspired to make the most of each day left to me rather than nurse regrets for what might have been…

This poem is a villanelle.

IN PRAISE OF LACEWORK 

Go where the wind blows

(across time and space)

fair petals of a yellow rose

See how each cloud shows

a non-judgmental face;

go where the wind blows

Be as the fallen seed grows

risen to beauty and grace,

fair petals of a yellow rose

See how Earth Mother sews

dreams into wintry lace;

go where the wind blows

Ghosts of a time that knows

and keeps safe our place,

fair petals of a yellow rose

Hear a lark in its last throes,

pass on its plea for peace;

go where the wind blows

fair petals of a yellow rose

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

The Zen of Yellow Roses

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When a loved one dies, a part of us dies also. Yet, my experience of death has been that, even as time passes, the worst of grief fades, and memory may even start to play tricks on us, love sees us continuing to share in the experience of loving and being loved, the quality of our inner life is all the better for that.  

In the language of flowers the yellow rose is for remembrance. What better icon then for the mind to click on at birthdays, anniversaries, whenever loss makes itself especially felt, than a yellow rose, and let flower the bitter-sweet joy of a happy memory risen above its thorns?

This poem is a kenning.

THE ZEN OF YELLOW ROSES or 

I bring truth

where imagination would feed

on fear and speculation,

engage with those seeking comfort

and reassurance

in far darker places than even

Orpheus searching

for his lost love in the bowels

of the Earth

I combat the terrors

of sleepless nights spent tossing

and turning

in early hours with no respect

for human dignity

or a desperation feeding

on such crumbs of hope

as left out for birds in winter

at its worst

I bring a lasting sense

of peace to mind, body and spirit,

where shadows

gather like key conspirators

with intent to kill,

yet kept at bay by a natural

instinct for survival,

struggle though it may against

hellish odds

As a rose its thorns, to pain I rise above,

who am Remembrance-Peace-Love

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Epitaph For A Rose

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Someone recently commented that, at 65 (in December) I look in pretty good shape if a bit frayed at the edges. My excuse for the latter is that I’m getting old(er).

I look around and ask myself, does the modern world have that same excuse?

EPITAPH FOR A ROSE

Amongst litter in the gutter, rose petals
frayed at the edges;
in acid raindrops making holes in the sky,
dreams absconding wherever…
anonymous footprints, marking out tracks
well travelled;
clothes, bright and dull, offering sanctuary
to troubled souls;
backs of balding heads telling fairy stories
of halcyon days
(were they to turn, what meeting of minds
before eyes averted?)

Reflections in shop windows passing us by
like kerb crawlers;
a toy gun sounds off a warning shot about
turning into dead ends

A deaf person signing to us has more to say
than we who can’t hear;
a blind person’s white stick, intently probing
our anxieties;
banks of cloud rolling away to let the sun in
on a street’s secrets;
Apollo’s kiss on parted lips, a taste of history
repeating itself;
a rumble of passing thunder in the distance
suggests a battle over;
rose petals, but litter in the gutter of a world
fraying at the edges

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

[Note; First published in Poetry Monthly International, January 2009 and subsequently in On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]