Soundings

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“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."  Victor Hugo 

"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” ― Pablo Neruda

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus

As the war in Ukraine rages on and our hearts go out to the suffering of its people the same heart reminds us, too, that suffering comes in all shapes, sizes and colours within ourselves as well as across the world; were we all better motivated to rise above the latter, peace would, indeed, stand a chance…? 

Spring is here, hopes pinned on winter's passing eventually fulfilled - for now at least. It is, of course, the nature of seasons to move on. Both global consciousness and personal space will need to engage with other winters, hot summers and splendid autumns too...

Thankfully, the human heart knows better than to let any winter get the better of any spring.

SOUNDINGS

Apollo, in no rush to smile
on a world unable to gather up
its pieces, unite and restore
them to much the same as before,
notwithstanding cracks glossed over
for appearance’s sake

Sun casts a sleepy eye on us,
we who rely on the natural world
more then we care to say,
to wipe our tears, make our fears
seem less, have Apollo hear us laugh
again, and again

There’s no hiding the wounds
of war across global consciousness
or personal space…
What we can do, though, all of us,
is bring positive life forces into play;
no small victory

Once defeats looked in the eye
and reminded that none are final
until the last bell tolls
to mark the demise of all that’s fair
and just in the world, mind-body-spirit
will yet find peace

Though calm seas may turn rough,
hillsides become rivers, few survivors,
we can blame climate change
or attend a collective consciousness
hell bent on showing how action speaks
louder than words

Looking up, at clouds making way
for spring sunshine, urging birds sing
along with a joyful clamour
below, nature and human nature
united in an ethos of growth most likely
to bear fruit

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

Togetherness, Poetry set to the Music of Time

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Spring, summer, autumn, winter... mixed experiences, all weathers and feelings as nature runs the gamut of its potential. Likewise, mind-body-spirit as it passes through the seasons of its life on Earth.

If the finest of weathers is sunshine and the warmth it brings so, too, the finest of feelings has to be love... and who’s to say, in the winter of our years, whether or not we shall ever see another summer...?

Love comes in all shapes and forms and, yes, sometimes the illusion can be such that we mistake it for reality, but the spirit of true love never dies...

TOGETHERNESS, POETRY SET TO THE MUSIC OF TIME

Hope, rippling summer corn

like stirrings of a child unborn,

wondering in the womb

on whatever may lie waiting between

life and tomb...

I lift my eyes to a gorgeous sky,
loose more dreams, watch them fly
like the tail of a child’s kite
flapping bravely against nature's 
might till barely a flicker, 
waved out of sight with tearful eye
and puckered brow, the child
I once was, returning now across
shadowy years, watery eyes
less of a surprise in the summer air
than once having sought 
without finding, been hurt without
making a sound while caged
in a breast so often deprived of rest,
tired of hearing “it's for the best,”
weary of waiting for waiting’s end,
lonely for want of a dear friend,
finally found, only to sail off on a sea
of corn,  FREE – and you’re smiling
wistfully back at me who’s left to bear
a heavy heart, weather the pain
that has us part, your look that says
“We made our world a far, far happier,
and kinder place..." 

A summer breeze, making music 

like a piano player idling at the keys

with an artist’s ease, lulling Earth’s

so-restless womb before the breaking

of a storm that’s spreading alarm

amongst the corn; I spot a field mouse,

tiny, quick, soon forgot, needs must

hasten my own tread, the music growing

to a crescendo in my head, like LIFE,

LOVE... Instead, I’ll linger in this place

and to wind and rain, I’ll lift the face 

of one who’s glad he came to see-hear

our history passing into such beauty

as I’ll always cherish for being no less

a part of you-me-us than s the shoes 

I wear, though much worn through a world 

much torn in two, three, and more 

by envy, hate and war, I have to say, kneeling

now to pray (to what or whom, who knows

with certainty until we get to be part

of the poem that's eternity?) Now, though,

dear friend I cannot let you go without 

thanks for today,  its agenda

for lasting peace and love ringing all the truer

for our being together... 

Hope, rippling  summer corn

like the stirrings of a child unborn,

wondering in the womb,

at whatever may lie waiting beyond 

life and tomb

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001, 2021

 [Note: The original version of this poem was written in 1998 and was first published under the title ‘Once More, Dear Friend’ in my collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; it has recently been considerably and significantly revised.] RNT

 

Configuring the Archives OR Placing the 'I' in History

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Every day, we make a little history by whatever we say and do or choose not to say and do, or simply forget to say and do, whatever the case may be. 

Come tomorrow, today’s Here-and-Now is already history, a an essential part in the history of our personal space if but a miniscule cog in the rolling wheel that is Earth’s past-present-future …

CONFIGURING THE ARCHIVES or PLACING THE 'I' IN HISTORY

One early spring,
I spotted swallows returning,
and before long,
chicks were feeding in a nest
by my window,
and in no time at all, I'm thrilling
to watching them winging
April skies, bringing such songs of cheer
as the human heart holds dear 

Summer, it came,
and mind-body-spirit on a roll
for taking its cue
from Earth Mother’s delight
in seeing nature
and human nature taking on such
joie de vivre as humanity
chooses for cover, if only to shield its lies
(for fears?) from prying eyes  

Autumn shed leaves,
such as humanity lets tears fall
as wintry days threaten
any winning ways the world
may care to invent
by way of its keeping any falls from grace
out of sight, out of mind,
while few of us as fooled as it likes to believe,
making the most of any reprieve 

Swallows flown south,
a wintry world in mourning for seasons
come and gone,
human nature taking its cue
from a barn owl
last spotted following such instincts
for survival as humankind
feeding on whatever likely prey happens by,
nor excluding the likes of you and I 

Such beginnings, endings, and in-between lives
as configuring all Earth’s archives... 

Copyright R.N. Taber, 2020

 

Covid Autumn

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A child at a bus stop asked its mother, “Why do so many leaves fall in autumn?” A woman in the queue answered for the perplexed mum, “They cry a saint’s tears for all of us so we can be spared too much crying, “What’s a saint?” the child wanted to know. “Your ma, for a one,” the woman chuckled, “… if only for raising you up to ask questions.” 

Everyone laughed, just as the bus arrived, but plenty of food for thought there, yeah?

That was years ago. I was the child, aged about five years, tugging at my mother’s hand in a bus queue. Later, I asked my mother if she thought the woman was rude for butting in. She  laughed, a twinkle in each eye, “Well, maybe she shouldn’t have butted in, but she certainly made my day, and you would do well to remember what she said about asking questions.” I promptly took my cue and asked, “Can I have an ice-cream?” Whereupon I learned something else that day; not every question supplies the answer you are hoping for …

Seventy years on, I am still asking questions such as the one on everybody’s lips at the moment, “Why this coronavirus, and for how long?” No easy answers to that one nor quick fixes either although I would suggest those selfish people letting their masks slip and/ or refusing to wear one as and when required simply because they don’t want to, ask themselves what gives them the right to put others at risk … ?

COVID AUTUMN

Winter closing in fast,
Earth Mother weeping as always 
for Her sleeping beauties,
yet taking comfort in a reawakening
come another spring,
while tears, too, for all Earth’s children,
no matter who or where,
having to live with pain, anxiety, fear,
as never (quite) felt before 

Winter, calling on all nature
to be sure and make due preparation
for whatever it takes;
separation, hibernation, skeletal trees
echoing hopeful springs,
glorious summers, evergreen cousins
egging on any ghosts nesting
where not so long ago sounds of birthing,
singing, true joie de vivre 

Winter, a forbidding season,
yet able to not only summon such ghosts
of universal significance,
but bring them together, lend them a finer
magnificence then any diary
of personal or global consciousness,
even its horrors redeemed
by heroes of war and peace destined to prove
the tragi-wisdom of sacrifice 

Falling leaves, such tears
as nature and human nature needs must
let fall in remembrance
and gratitude for natural and personal
histories at the heart
of all things bright and beautiful, all creatures
great and small, long before
natural and human waste began to haunt a sleepy
global consciousness 

Nothing changes, everything changes, such is the turn
of the screw that is a Covid-19 autumn

 Copyright R N. Taber 2020

 

A (Covid) Season of the Heart

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

Another new post-poem today, although any message it manages to get across will sound very familiar to regular readers. Still, it has been my experience that anything worth saying is invariably worth repeating, especially as, like so many of us, passing years see to it that I am getting very forgetful, even more so when under the kind of stress this Covid-19 persists in imposing on us all. 

Years of hormone therapy since my prostate cancer was first diagnosed in 2011, not to mention growing older (I will be 75 soon) leave me feeling very tired and ready for bed by around 9.30-10 pm most nights, whatever the time of year. Autumn, though, as nature and human nature braces for winter, brings with it a curious kind of fatigue, one tempered with a sense of expectation that things will get better come springtime, and it’s just a question of bearing the burden of winter with fortitude rather than despair; not unlike sleeping off a nasty headache. 

Most of us are familiar with ‘the old saying, ‘Where here’s life, there’s hope; a teacher at my old school had his own version of that, slightly but significantly amended to ‘Where there are life forces, there is hope.’ 

Nature goes quiet in winter, but it does not die; any life forces passing into oblivion, will most likely be regenerated come springtime; beneath the very wintry earth we tread, there are seeds awaiting their cue to wake and grow. It has been my experience, for many years, that much the same can be said for the human condition; mind-body-spirit may appear to be asleep sometimes, less active on our behalf, but it is only sleeping and will invariably take its cue to engage with us more positively again as needs must it should, if not always as and when we might prefer. 

Sometimes, there is nothing for it but we have to play a waiting game; similarly, it would seem, with the coronavirus.

Many people agree that love never dies, but even they will concede that as loved ones die, our love for them that endures in personal space cannot compensate for their physical presence. I agree, but that is where a belief in the posthumous consciousness comes into its own; as regular readers know, I believe in ghosts and their presence in and all around us, as forming part of our whole by way of their influence for the better in the course of both their lifetimes and ours. 

I can close my eyes and see them, hear them advising and comforting me as they have always done, especially during hard times … can’t you?  

This poem is a villanelle.

A (COVID) SEASON OF THE HEART 

Covid, on an autumnal breeze,
nature, all but ready for its winter sleep,
birds departing first-home trees 

Leaves, tears of one who grieves,
among rustlings of promises yet to keep;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze 

Apollo, no less anxious to please,
assuring us another spring we’ll yet reap,
birds departing first-home trees 

Drawing on a stoicism of centuries,
Hope on humanity, its blessings shall heap;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze 

Come winter, nature’s worst injuries
restored anew, though we hear not a peep;
birds departing first-home trees 

There’s a spirituality in autumn leaves,
cue for human hearts, joie-de-vivre to keep;
Covid, on an autumnal breeze,
birds departing first-home trees

Copyright R N Taber 2020

An Affinity with Spring

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 “It is typical of spring to tease us with wintry days among hints of warmer, kinder times ahead; likewise, life, as the human heart emerges from wintry climes, and gets to grips with hope …” I wrote that brief introduction to this post/ poem when it first appeared on the blog in 2015. Let’s all hope it will be as true for the spring of 2021 as well. I suspect the Covid-19 coronavirus will still be with us, but plenty of hope too; hope for a vaccine becoming available sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, we are learning to live with Covid-19 as our bodies adapt to it, developing more immunity as we have, eventually, to influenza and other viruses before a vaccine finally became available.

Now, I’ve always dreaded the winter months, never more so than now, but I recall my mother’s approach to it and try to follow her example. “Forget winter,” she would say, “Focus on spring. For its sunshine, flowers, and swallows returning to nest. Do that, and spring will not only arrive the sooner, but you’ll feel so much better for it that even winter at its worst won’t get you down.” Young Roger was sceptical, but … it worked then just as it works for me now, some 70 years on.

Oh, I have a fondness for autumn although it is a sad month; even now, though, I am looking ahead to spring and Hope is already getting the better of Despair. As for any moments of doubt and fear, not uncommon in winters of the heart as so many are enduring right now in this Covid-19 pandemic, there is always the likes of a cock robin on hand to cheer any flagging spirits, our cue to keep looking on the brighter side of life, especially during its bleaker times...

AN AFFINITY WITH SPRING

New leaves
sailing into imagination;
peace of mind
for refusing to cave in
to fears of a kind
defying all description,
assailing senses,
holding the mind, body
and spirit
captive to anticipation
of the worst that can happen
to any of us

New leaves
drifting through our time
and space,
as if seeking a place
to freefall,
while our finer senses
serving mind,
body and spirit to kinder ends 
can only imagine it
as the worst scenario,
resolving it shall not happen
to any of us 

New leaves
like voices without sound
on the ear,
killing off all human fear
of life and death
by returning to the planet
such past promises
of another spring as not lost,
only sleeping,
Earth Mother sending
dead leaves to nurture Her seeds
in all of us

Buds opening
on an old tree, so delightful
to the eye,
restoring a flagging faith
in all things
bright and beautiful,
inviting us
to reconnect, make time
and personal space
for that immortal poetry
of 'live' nature and human love
in all of us 

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2015, 2020

Autumnal Life Forces

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

This poem first appeared on the blog in 2012; it has been slightly but significantly revised since I included it in my collection, Accomplices to Illusion, 2007. I am hoping to publish new editions of my earlier collections at some future date; they will mostly comprise revised versions of poems from first editions.

Having just finished my first new collection since 2012, I am approaching publishers, but may need to self-publish again as many just don't like the idea of general and gay-interest poems under one cover; Then, just one more collection before I tackle any new editions. As I will be 75 soon, I can but hope that old age and Covid-19 will keep me alive long enough. <<wry bardic grin>>

Meanwhile ...

I love autumn. I don't find it a depressing season. The incredible colours of turning leaves never fail to fill me with passion along the lines of optimism, hope, and defiance even at a time of sadness for the beginnings of endings … 

However hard a winter we may endure, we can always look forward to a kinder spring and new beginnings, such is the way of the natural world, ours too if we but let ourselves access the kinder human spirit; religion does not have a monopoly on

spirituality. (As regular readers know, I do not subscribe to any religion as such, although I do relate very strongly to Pantheists who see God as nature, rather than its creator.)

AUTUMNAL LIFE FORCES 

In a garden spread with dead leaves
and heads of flowers,
I once heard tales told by a dying rose
soon to breathe its last,
about a Man in Red passing through
the world, scaring us
like the Bogey Man in hiding
under a child's bed, pretending to roar
like a dragon up for sport,
despite as vulnerable a heartbeat
as an ageing pet

Neither young nor old, a Man in Red
wears buttons of gold
on a coat the colour of blushing cheeks
at our making a faux pas,
made to look as small as a toy dragon
under the bed, where dawn
is prologue to adventure and sunset
fingers of blood, though 
we'll be safe enough tucked away
in bed, free to dream, and tomorrow
is another day ... 

According to the rose, the Man in Red
has kindly ways, in spite 
of inviting cloud and wind to feed 
on gentle trees,
rip them bare while a few songbirds
dare to watch and wonder
how sounds of war become songs 
of peace, fear become joy,
leaving a friendly Sandman free
to paint over the bleakest scenarios
with bold colours 

"He comes for us all, and we must depart,
to engage forever with the human heart."

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2020

[Note: Photo taken from the Internet. An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Autumn is a Man in Red' in Accomplices to Illusion by R, N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

 

 

 

Spirit of Autumn

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People often tell me they find autumn a sad month because it means winter is closing in, but as I have often pointed out on my blogs… after winter, spring.

Better, surely, to look forward to spring than dread winter? 

In the meantime, let us enjoy autumn for all its glorious colours and the sense of eternal optimism these are surely meant to inspire in us, an optimism that well may fail us from time to time...but, as my late mother once said, there is an eternal springtime of the loving, hopeful heart sure to inspire and help us through all the seasons of life, even the hardest of its winters...if we will but keep faith with it. When I pointed out that I was not a religious person, she simply responded to the effect that no religion has a monopoly on love and hope since we are all born with a potential capacity for both. How far we choose to apply it, she would argue, has more to do with human nature than religion. (My mother was a Christian, but like all the more remarkable religious-minded people, whatever their religion, she closed her heart and mind to no one.)

SPIRIT OF AUTUMN

Autumn leaves... 

Drifting by my window

like dreams I have nurtured

with love and care

in the garden of my life

where some flowered

in their season while others

were battered by wind and rain,

never to be seen again

Autumn leaves...

Whirling by my window

like dervishes in a frenzied

dance of life and death,

sustained by a rage to seize

the day, come what may,

on the battlefields of my life

where I have risked all to prove

a born capacity for love

Autumn leaves...

Clinging to my window

as Apollo clings to the last patch

of blue before sunset,

bids nature and human nature

rest on hard won laurels,

so-brief enough reprieve before

more rude awakenings to a world

falling on its sword

Autumn leaves...

Ripped from my window

like pages of memory best left

to whims of wind and rain

while I enjoy each dreamy leaf,

petal and blade of grass

found in the garden of my life

whose choirs heard singing each day

of my pride in being gay

Autumn leaves, tears of Earth Mother 

for any that cannot see beyond winter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2020

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

Autumn, Season of Silences

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Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2013.

When barely spring here in the UK, it is already autumn in some parts of the world. An Australian reader living and working in London one spring and ‘feeling homesick’ once asked for an autumn poem. [I lived in Australia once, a long time ago, and would love to go back as fate had it in for me at the time and I wasn't able to stay long. Sadly, travel insurance due to my prostate cancer and other health issues is prohibitive so I suspect I never will.]

There is a dreamy quality about autumn that, for me, is like listening to unspoken poems, a spirited silence that no other season can quite match, even a feisty spring or gregarious summer, as if it is loath to go into a winter sleep likely to subdue its silence if not its spirit ...

AUTUMN, SEASON OF SILENCES 

One long, lovely summer

once I spent with you

till fallen angels broke cover;

enter autumn, on cue

Our time together near over,

we were as leaves

on a grieving sycamore

falling like tears

Drifting, piling on a grave

of broken promises,

all the love we’ll never have

for all our kisses

Saddest of autumn dreams,

unspoken poems

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2020

[Note: This poem was first published in an anthology, Shades of Autumn, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2004 and subsequently in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

An Autumn Reverie

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Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2017.

As a student of English and American literature (early 50 years ago … oo-err!) at the University of Kent in Canterbury in the 1970’s, I enjoyed reading the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I dipped into his Notebooks and could as easily relate to this entry then as now notwithstanding a mobility problem and my coming up to 75 years-old.

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."  - Nathaniel Hawthorne [Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]

 AN AUTUMN REVERIE

Autumn leaves on a lake
caught like flies in a spidery web
of glittering sunlight

Breaking free in a breeze,
skimming feisty ripples, courtesy
of a north-westerly wind

Some taking off, low fly past
over sad trees standing at attention
for once-time companions

Others, caught in a sudden lull,
returned to the lake or as prodigals
to the earth’s safe-keeping

Somewhere, woodlands sounding
its Last Post by way of acknowledging
all its seasoned veterans

Glittering sunlight on a lake,
dead leaves like flies in a spidery web,
observers lost in thought

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020

Winter, haunt of 'live' Ghosts

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I may seem strange to publish a winter poem in August. Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2010 at a time when the UK and much of Europe was seeing its worst winter for some years. 

Ten years on and many of us are experiencing a cruel winter of the heart as the Covid-19 coronavirus remains active worldwide; combined with the effects of increasing climate change, the world and everyday life as we know it is changing faster than anyone could have predicted even just a few years ago.

A reader suggests I am "talking nonsense" when I refer to a posthumous consciousness. Fair enough, we must agree to differ.  Only ... an aunt of mine lost both her son and daughter in their early 20's within just a few years of each other; one to a driving accident, the other to breathing difficulties made worse for being asthmatic. She once told me that "Of course I miss them terribly, more than  words can say, but they will always be a part of me and their dad; their presence there is not only veyt real but also very comforting. We are still a family, after all." 

I felt much the same way when my mother died, although having to cope with the reality meant it would take a nervous breakdown three years later to - eventually - reach the same place as my aunt.  

We die, yes, but its is far more than a poet's imagination that we live on through others, for better, for worse, although the human mind-body-spirit is such that it is more likely to take inspiration from the former than dwell on the latter. 

Those life forces that are the making of us all may well be a curious combination of good and bad, but mind-body-spirit will always make more room (and time) for the former ... if we let it, rather than put up roadblocks along the lines of envy, jealousy, and a sense of being unable (quite) to forgive, either ourselves and/ or others. 

WINTER, HAUNT OF 'LIVE' GHOSTS

Where once daisies in meadows green,
footmarks where Jack Frost
has paused, glanced over his shoulder
for any sign of a 'live' ghost
(man or woman?) haunting each step
he takes…
marking each heavy, careless tread,
all green things left for dead
that may yet be saved
where other seasons await their cue
within its savage breast

Sure to bide its time before descending
on wings of a dove
spreading its wings like an eiderdown
of white satin
where a restless world dreams of waking
to a peace and goodwill
folk singers will celebrate for years,
while angel voices make a play
to fill half empty pews
and world leaders grace Sunday prayers
in election years

It will not stay long, if time well spent,
making good at least some
of the damage old Jack inclined to do,
reminding brave robin,
(eternal optimist) of other lives sleeping
off hangovers
from half forgotten centuries lusting
for the joys of spring
all but lost in the thick of such wars
on nature’s own deadlier even than Jack’s
for being human

As peace, to pain, a kindness sure to show;
where winter ghosts, spring sure to follow

Copyright R.N. Taber 2007; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2007]

Apprentice to Nature

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Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2016.

Since the Covid-19 coronavirus struck earlier this year, I have made many references to the fact that – especially as I live alone – writing up the blogs and working on a new collection of poems (albeit more slowly than I would like) has been a (very) welcome distraction and very therapeutic in the sense that it has saved me from getting too depressed and going into freefall. 

Several readers have emailed to say how attending to their gardens has worked for them in much the same way. I guess few activities beat actively participating in the growth of living things, whether it be a plant of a person. Me, I do not access to a garden, but look over one surrounded by trees, so can enjoy watching the birds and other life forces from my kitchen window.

One reader writes, “I live alone and do not have a garden, but I have a small dog and pot plants that help keep me sane. If I had to focus only on myself, I would be in dire straits by now …”

While the pandemic is a nightmare for everyone, dare I say it I so much worse for those people living alone are having to focus on themselves in the absence of much support from family and friends who may well not be able to visit; contact by telephone and/or video sessions help, but can make us feel so much worse once the sessions ends and the harsh reality of being alone attacks our senses with a vengeance. If ever there was a global need for

positive thinking, it is now as some countries like the UK emerge from lockdown while dreading a return of the coronavirus before a vaccine can be found.

My mother loved gardening. She saw herself as foster mother to the plants, flowers and wildlife she took under her wing. "It's much like bringing up a family," she once commented wryly, "they give far more pleasure for pleasure's own sake than by way of any compensating for what's best forgotten..."

Audrey Hepburn is often quoted as having said, 'To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.'

Now, I have always been a Hepburn fan, not least because I, too, discovered years ago that positive thinking will see us through just about any of the negatives life throws our way or puts in our heads; we just have to believe in tomorrow. (Did I say it was easy...?)

Stay strong, folk, and think positive.

This poem is a villanelle.

APPRENTICE TO NATURE

Proudly, much like a lover,

a flowering of its time like no other,

creating an evergreen border

Watching it grow, mature,

as per laissez-faire of Earth Mother;

proudly, much like a lover

Every second, minute, hour,

dreams to share in, store and nurture,

creating an evergreen border

Mixed emotions undercover

yet rising to every occasion (whatever)

proudly, much like a lover

A pupil-apprentice to nature,

the best part of any past-present-future,

creating an evergreen border

Humanity, common gardener,

marking the fruits of selfless endeavour;

proudly, much like a lover,

creating an evergreen border

Roger N. Taber 2016

[Note: If you ever want to contact me - rogertab@aol.com - please put 'Poetry' in the subject field or it will be ignored. All non-spam emails will receive a reply although there may be a short delay as I have various health problems at the moment.]

P-O-E-M-S, Life Forces OR Poetry, Landscape of the Arts

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2015. I am only re-posting poems  that I have recently revised by changing the title, amending aspects of the poem itself if only slightly, or both; to explore the blog archives further, simply click on links you will find on the right hand side of any blog page.

Last year, a reader e-mailed to ask if I would mind if I recommend my blogs on social media. Not at all, be my guest., the more, the merrier. I should point out, though, that I no longer use social media myself. I found myself getting frustrated with a lot of 'fake news' and trolls objecting to the fact that I am gay yet write general as well as gay-interest poetry. (Do they really not appreciate there is more to anyone - whatever their gender, ethnicity or creed - than their sexuality?) I am not ashamed of being gay, but neither will I be stereotyped into any box, whatever shape or form. I am especially delighted, therefore, that some straight readers have taken the trouble to let me know they visit and enjoy my gay blog from time to time.]

Oh, and many thanks to those readers who have been in touch to say they have enjoyed some of the novels serialized on my fiction blog:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com

I hope to upload them as e-books at a later date. [I had such plans for retirement, including travel plans, but have felt overwhelmed from time to time by various health issues. There were initial problems with my prostate cancer during the early days of hormone therapy in 2011 followed by a bad fall the following year which left me with a smashed heel and unable to walk for months. Last year a venous ulcer left me housebound for months and I now need to wear compression stockings. However, I am on top of all that now if still experiencing some difficulty walking, even with the aid of my trusty walking stick, and get out and about as much as I can. More recently, of course, the Covid-19 coronavirus arrived, and I am but one among millions worn down by its consequences for all of us, although I am still alive so must be glad for that ... and count my blessings rather than whinge my woes. wry bardic grin

Meanwhile ...

There are few scenes more amazing about any landscape that particularly captures the imagination than sunbeams dancing on the back of a blast of rain.

They may well strike at the heart, those sunbeams, and open it up for nature, human nature and our own self-consciousness to make of their findings what they will ...

P-O-E-M-S, LIFE FORCES or POETRY, LANDSCAPE OF THE ARTS

Glorious landscape under a rainbow;

life-force sun come again, Apollo

re-asserting a hold on humanity as old 

as the evergreen slopes of Parnassus,

a landscape of life forces ever creating  

and re-creating us 

Birdsong, a bouquet of happy hearts

sending out a message

of hope and joy, offering sad souls

some respite from pain,

dreams to aspire, well worth recalling

where any rainbow’s turning

reveals no ages-old mythical ending

likely to help compensate

for some bleak, unfulfilling spring

(summer, too?) till autumn

takes its cue from our tears, prelude

to a wintry season of longing

for a (far) kinder spring and summer

than once came upon us

like opportunist magpies to egg-birds,

leaving a trail of blood

more likely even than Joseph’s coat

of, oh, so many colours

to be misunderstood by those of us

anxiously looking to the poetry

of a common humanity for ways

to re-invent ourselves 

Let cloud faces make what they may

of all they (and we) see, hear, say,

and do, if only for sharing in a feeling 

for the poetry of humanity, its arts,

sciences, and natural forces creating

and re-creating us 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem under the title 'A Feeling for Poetry' appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

Drumming up Raison d'être OR Music to the Ear

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

Still stressed out here, but where there's stress, there may well be - invariably so, in my case - a poem attempting to relieve it ...

Now, regular readers will know that I subscribe to no religion; the closest I identify with any sense of a God is as a philosophy that turns on nature rather than dogma which has, in turn, led me to identify closely with pantheism. 

My Religious Education teacher at secondary school once asked my fifth form class to put our hands up if we believed in God. A forest of hands shot up to confirm that, yes, most of the class did. Only a few of us kept hands on desks. One by one we were asked why we didn't believe in God. While most  simply shrugged and looked increasingly embarrassed, somehow found the nerve to insist that I could not imagine a personified God and saw no reason to take the word of any religious text since I saw religion as being one of the most divisive forces in world history. (I had recently read something along those lines and instantly empathised with the author.) To my surprise and relief, I was not taken to task for presuming to differ. Instead, the teacher asked me if I believe in nature, to which I managed a positive "Yes, sir!" 

"Then you are a pantheist, Taber," the teacher said, and went on to try and explain pantheism to the whole class. Someone asked if pantheism was a sin. "Not exactly," said the teacher, "because it does not deny the existence of God, only of God as an individual.The pantheist sees God as an expression of everything in the universe, especially nature; it is a philosophy as opposed to a Faith. A person's faith may well consider pantheism a sacrilege, but that is only according to its dogma. Whether we accept or reject any dogma, on whatever grounds, is entirely up to the individual. Taber's choosing to reject it, doesn't mean he is right or wrong any more than the rest of us who choose to accept it. Either way, attributing a meaning to God that is meaningful to the inner self will, hopefully, sustain us all our lives and beyond. Now, to move on ..."

I am paraphrasing in part, but this has to be more than simply the gist because those words were destined to remain in my head for the next sixty years. (I will be 75 in December)

Hopefully, I have also answered the question recently emailed me by a reader who  is offended by  my commenting - on more than one occasion - that religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality. The latter, this reader insists, 'requires a Belief in God as laid down by Holy Books.'

What can I say? I can only suggest we agree to differ, especially as he (or she) also has some nice things to say about my poetry, and is clearly a regular visitor to this blog.

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

DRUMMING UP RAISON D'ÊTRE or MUSIC TO THE EAR

I smell autumn,

even as sounds of summer

drift by my window

on a gentle, southerly breeze;

Earth Mother

at my ear, ever warning me

against despair;

each season's heart beating out

the slow-quick-slow

rhythms of any given life span

on drums across the world

I spot swallows,

aware their time has come again

to elude winter's bite

before it's too late to take wing

for kinder climes,

taking their cue (invariably)

from a north wind

now plucking, now tearing leaves

from nesting trees,

like a bailiff serving due notice

to quit, little if any reprieve

Elderly couples,

grandchildren skipping alongside

mums pushing prams,

all pause to watch the swallows,

all noise and silence

asking a what-where-why 

mentoring humankind,

listening out for answers in the wind

that are a blur on the ear

manifesting itself in sciences, arts,

and philosophies of religion

Gone, the swallows.

out of sight, out of mind, like friends

who have moved away,

promising to have us come and stay

'one of these days';

loneliness, a snowfall of the heart

on mind-body-spirit;

Memory, keeping a weather eye open 

for swallows in the course

of its seeking answers to questions

posed by past-present-future

Time passes, winter 

melts into spring, swallows returning;

an invitation out of the blue

from friends moved away, anxious

to avoid speculation;

nature, left sleeping on sounds-smells

of other seasons

by way of its nurturing more life forms;

humanity, left asking

of arts and sciences such proof of life

as might nurture raison d'être

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019; 2020