The Story of a Life

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Although I am 75 years-old, I remain at heart much the same person I was as a child. Hopefully, I have learned enough from various life-experiences not to dwell on the many mistakes I have made, but take sufficient strength from all they have taught me to keep looking on the bright(er) side of being human. 

The pandemic has given us all much food for thought, not least for a growing sense of isolation. 

Relatively few people have such confidence in themselves that they rarely need to share their thoughts and ideas, especially with those friends and/ or family members whose opinions matter most to us, if only because we can be sure they will be frank rather than just kind. 

The need for social distancing has been kind to no one, often leaving only the inner self to fall back on, not the most objective confidante to share our concerns. Even so, the self is all of who and what we are, and we need to trust it to give mind-body-spirit all the encouragement it may need. 

As a child, I would take my cue from the spirit of Happy-Ever-After tales, however questionably they might have ended. As an adult, I guess I still do. For better or for worse, it has seen me through good times and bad, and I can but hope it will continue to do so…

THE STORY OF A LIFE 

Listen, I am near,
poised to bid a heartfelt farewell
to winter’s darker ways,
mind-body-spirit eager to re-engage
with joie de vivre,
for growing younger, its sunlit days,
a timely reminder,
though whether humanity any the wiser
remains a brain-teaser 

Listen, I am here,
seek me out and you may well hear
whatever the head
seeks to know, while loath or unable
to break down
a heart’s closed door lest it reveal
it was but a dream,
the love for whom you dared hope to be
another’s one-and-only 

Listen, and be sure
to hear of what songbirds are singing,
that joie de vivre
we would all engage in for homing in on
people and places
we can always rely on to fill the heart
with happy thoughts,
inspiring all mind-body-spirit to go for gold
put aside growing old 

I am much the same favourite bedtime story
that’s the stuff of all live-and-let live history

 Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living with Hans Christian Andersen

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Everyone loves a Christmas tree, but (let’s face it) Christmas does a fir tree no favours.

Now, both as a child and adult, I have loved the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen...at any time of year. As Christmas draws near, I cannot help but recall The Fir Tree.  

The fir tree is in such a hurry to grow that it fails to enjoy the beauty around it. All it thinks about is how much it wants to become a tall fir tree and see the wide world and experience new things. It finds no joy in the moment, but is always longing for the future. Finally, the fir tree realizes it has wasted its life by living for the future instead of for the present.  As a story about failing to appreciate what we have going for us until it is too late, I dare say many if not most of us can relate to it in one way or another?

Hans Christian Andersen, 1805-1875

As well as loving Andersen’s fairy tales, I carried much of their sense of morality and spirituality with me into adult life, which is possibly why I still enjoy reading them from time to time. It can do no harm (can it?) to recall that naïve, free, faery, spirit upon whose back I would frequently ride off into magical other-worlds and find respite from childhood’s darker side. (However much we may like to think of childhood as all innocence and light, it is no more immune to the harsher realities of human nature and everyday existence than adulthood; the latter, even at its worst, at least offers experience and choices rarely if ever available to us as children.)

This poem is a villanelle.

LIVING WITH HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

A certain Danish weaver

became a tailor, turned to acting, 

found fame as a storyteller

His tales told world over,

(inspiring many an ugly duckling)

a certain Danish weaver

Denmark’s heart breaker,

(the little mermaid lost everything)

found fame as a storyteller

Shrewd political observer,

(even of an emperor’s new clothing)

a certain Danish weaver

Steadfast, like a tin soldier,

(firm favourite at bed-time reading)

found fame as a storyteller

Where childhood rides forever

on the back of its wishful thinking,

a certain Danish weaver

found fame as a storyteller

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

Every Poem Tells A Story

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I have always loved reading, writing and telling stories. I dare say you will have noticed how this carries over into many of my poems.

EVERY POEM TELLS A STORY

Every poem tells a story…
about love, hate, shame, glory,
whatever inspires, lights
the fires of creativity, blind coals
in secret cavities of the soul
that now and then burst
into flames, lighting up the mind,
exposing the heart’s needs,
its strengths and weaknesses
born of love, lust, hate, pain,
grieving for the world's repeating
its worst again and again,
leaving poor humanity to follow on
as best it can, put right
its wrongs, conveniently rewrite
the saddest songs of war,
disasters, wounds that will never
truly heal - with lines even
a paralysed heart can feel, though
it take a while to penetrate
its body armour, participate in the
latest United Nations resolution,
promises of aid on the way, more than
mere dreams fading as each day
turns into night, night into day, no one
(still) anything wiser to say
than - Let’s pray. And where is God
looking out for whom, exactly, a child
dying of AIDS or starvation…?

Every poem tells a story with as many endings

as humanity's interpretation of its meanings

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; rev. 2021

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; rev. 2021.]