Wisdom is a Tree

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

Given that I often post Gay Awareness poems on both blogs, a reader ‘Marc’ has asked if I would post another here '‘because my mother suffers with depression and reads your general blog, but would never dream of reading a gay blog. My brother is gay and she wants nothing to do with him.’

Oh, but how sad for the whole family!

I feel very disappointed that this man’s mother has not felt able to be more understanding of her gay son. Feedback suggests that a growing number of readers have started dipping into both blogs during the past year or so and several parents of gay men and women have said my gay-interest poems have helped them come to terms with their sexuality. Others, of course, condemn me for "leading decent people astray" as one angry parent put it recently. I can only hope Marc's mother may eventually join the former and feel able to be no less openly loving and understanding towards her gay son than towards her other children.

Now, I have been feeling very low lately and struggling to keep a deeper depression at bay. (An old enemy since childhood, but that's another story for another post/poem.) As regular readers will know, creative writing always helps me; if I can just begin to write a poem, working on it over a period of hours, days even, gives me a sense of achievement.

It doesn’t matter if a poem or novel turns out to be good or poor; what matters is that sense of achievement, keeping my head above water in a hostile sea.  

Any creative work can help keep the pitch black depression at bay; there are many shades of grey to pass through first and a sense of creating something can restore colour to a seemingly colourless life. 

It doesn’t matter what we try; it can be writing, music, gardening, catching up with the decorating or making a paper aeroplane...Nor does it matter if we don’t finish whatever creative task we’ve set ourselves, so long as we find the motivation to try; if things don’t work out for one reason or another, we just have to dig deeper, and try something else.

Never contemplate the notion of failure. Failure is losing the will to have a go at this or that through no fault of our own but an inability to cope. Failure is not even being able to feel that we want to try, which usually means we have put ourselves through all those murky shades of grey and are well stuck in that pitch black pit we call depression; the only way out of it is to heave any sense of failure as far away as we can, give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back for that, and then look long and hard within ourselves for the will to try something, anything that will help put our lives back on an even keel.

We shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help either; being able to find the words to ask for help means we are half-way towards making a full recovery already.

Sadly some people don’t begin to understand depression and think we can be jollied out of it. In the end, though, it is down to us whether we sink or swim.

Did I say it was easy?

It has rained a lot lately. A tree outside my front window is a vivid leafy green and daily plays host to songbirds of all kinds. One day, it reached out to me with a life-line, and a GOOD feeling I had been looking for but hadn’t experienced for a while made me grab it with both hands...

Consequently, today’s poem...

WISDOM IS A TREE

An old tree outside my window

assures me all year round

Earth Mother’s looking out for me

because in me she’s found

someone who cares, always hears,

is always there for her

as she’s always here for me

(so speaks the tree)

An old tree outside my window

assures me every day

Earth Mother’s always here for me

and doesn’t give a damn

about sex, sexuality, creed, colour

or what age we are

if we’ll be here for her always

(as She for us)

An old tree outside my window

has many tales to tell

how Earth Mother has shed tears

for the likes of me

who sought refuge in religion,

but found no sanctuary

only a self-centred expectation

(no salvation)

An old tree outside my window

took me to its heart;

Earth Mother would not have me

thrash at life in pain

but as sun and rain nurturing

the natural world,

seeks to inspire the likes of me

(wisdom is a tree)

An old tree outside my window

has wiped my tears,

falling much like autumn leaves,

leaving my branches bare

through a bleak winter of despair

till love songs, like spring rain,

would have us rework our history

(so speaks the tree)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012