L-I-F-E, Seasons in Time and (Personal) Space

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A reader writes, how can you write poetry when the world is being devastated and left bereft by COVID-19? I am not sure if this is meant as criticism or compliment so will take it as both. Well, it 

isn’t easy, even at the best of times, to compose a poem that attempts to strike a balance between a celebration of nature and human nature while also acknowledging their flaws. 

Given that the Here-and-Now in the shape of COVID-19 is probably among the worst of times ever for many of us, the task has felt all but Herculean; it has taken several days of writing and rewriting to arrive at the poem below. Hopefully, most readers will get a sense of the spirit of optimism in which it was written, but as we all know, you can please some of the people some of the time but never all the people all the time …

Whatever, fingers crossed …

Another reader comments, “… it feels like we are heading for Armageddon.”  Well, I take his or her point, but beg to differ. I have had my fair share of ups and downs in life, and if the experience has taught me nothing else, it has shown me the power of positive thinking.

Never underestimate the human spirit, neither its natural resourcefulness nor its compassion; we may well find ourselves at the edge of some transcendental abyss from time to time, but the human spirit will always lend us the strength to resist diving into it if we can but touch base. Never easy, and sometimes we fail; it has worked, for me - albeit more subconsciously than consciously - more than once, but especially when I had a bad nervous breakdown in my early 30’s and attempted suicide.  (I will be 75 later this year.)

To date, I know of only one friend who has died of a COVID-19 related illness; we played together as children, lost touch for years and found each other again online a few years ago. Every death is a tragedy for family and friends left behind.  At the same time, I am reminded of something a teacher at my old school back in the 1950’s told the class: “Love and friendship never dies, not only for remaining a part of us all our lives, but also for that part of them in us being passed on in ways and to people we may never know … and so it goes on. A university lecturer would later refer to it as a posthumous consciousness to which, as regular readers will know, I often make reference in my blogs and poems.

Remembrance is no compensation for loss, but I have always found it a great comfort to sense that no one’s life has ever been in vain since we all make a positive contribution even if we don’t always realise it. [Some readers may get a greater sense of my mindset here from my reading of my poem,  ‘The Enchanted Wood’ @  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGCv54LM4yo ]

I am not a religious person, and consider myself a pantheist. Nor do I believe that religion has a monopoly on spirituality. In the sense that I try to give the human spirit a voice in my poems, hopefully they express something of the spirituality with which I invariably engage as I write them.

Wishing you all love and peace, whoever and wherever you are in the world,

Hugs,

Roger

L-I-F-E, SEASONS IN TIME AND (PERSONAL) SPACE

Spring arrives, offering all nature

and human nature a time to nurture

and flower, making such promises

as it craves will see our lives spread joy

on our graves

Summer comes, offering all nature

and human nature a time to give senses

their head, deck humanity with love

and peace, see any living nemeses left

for dead

Autumn comes, reworking all nature

by winds and rain enough to blow away

its debris, imploring mind-body-spirit

remain free before winter dares impose

captivity

Winter comes, nature, so eerily quiet

but for redbreast, forever making the best

of the worst, coaxing the human heart

into the Spirit of Stoicism, living metaphor

for its heroism 

Nature and human nature, deserving

a time to come, go, rest, and come again

in light and dark, each in its turn,

a measure of life and death, come ultimate

Harvest Home

Copyright R N. Taber, 2020

[Note: As requested by several readers, this poem will appear in my next collection 'Addressing the Art of Being Human' that I am working on now.]

A Nature Lover's Diary

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All my life I have been both fascinated and appalled by the way nature and human nature have so much in common in terms of natural beauty and an inclination for violence; we may well put the latter down to the survival of the fittest, but does that make it right and if so, right for whom? Not the rabbit pounced upon by a fox or the fox ripped to pieces by hounds nor the mentally ill taunted to distraction by an ill-informed society or the elderly person similarly deprived of due care because they are considered expendable …

A teacher once put to the whole class that nature and human nature have more in common than most of us would care to admit; no one responded. Even so, it still rings as true as it did to a 16 year-old wannabe poet all those years ago.

A NATURE LOVER'S DIARY

Watched, such living woods at night,

as hear nightingales sing, watch
blackbirds to the nest homeward fly,

a shooting star prick an owl’s wing,

even trees sweeping stars from the sky;

Seen, a hare outrunning a fox, a badger 
outwit its baiting (now and then),

moles defying blindness, bats come out
to play, fireflies dissembling, Man
in the Moon descending to snuggle up 
to a sleeping swan;

Walked, the same living woods by day,

released rabbits caught in cruel  traps,

seen poachers retrieve,would bag more,
but for the flapping of Time on wing;
Witnessed, a fox catching up with its prey,
ripping it to pieces, redcoats with dogs

bred to set up a kill for the sheer fun of it
while those in authority turn deaf ears
to animal rights protesters, marking us all
for nuisance creatures, media ever homing in
for all the wrong reasons

Nature, humanity, come owl's cry or lark's lay,
but prey to winds of the day ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title ' A Nature Lover’s Dream’ in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]

Nature v Human Nature, Battle Royal

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"Autumn's nearly over, and who's ready for winter? Not me!" exclaimed a neighbour the other day, adding, " ...but who's ever ready for any change for the worse,"he asked with a wry grin, then "We can but take it in our stride, I guess, and hope for the best..."

I refrained from saying that 'hoping or the best' may well - literally - be the death of humankind if we don't all get our act together sooner rather than later regarding climate - not just seasonal - changes across the globe. We've had this conversation before. He is convinced Donald Trump had his finger on the pulse when he dismissed the idea of climate change as fake news, scaremongering, intended to make Big Business feel guilty and think again about just how it continues to amass its millions.

Climate activist,  Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenagers has recently made world headlines by going 'on'strike' from school as part of a strategy to emphasise the concerns of young people worldwide regarding climate change. She was invited to speak at a world conference on climate change and  succeeded in ruffling many a politician's feathers with her blunt, no-nonsense approach to a subject increasingly close to many people's hearts, especially the young,given that it is their futures with which our political ,betters, insist on playing Russian roulette.

While I applaud this young woman's stand on climate change, and wish her well, I also hope she does not neglect her schooling for too long.  Education is not only the key to exposing ignorance, it is also  the key to power; the latter is necessary if we want to make a difference in real rather than rhetorical
terms. The Here-and-Now is all about immediacy, especially for the young as I well recall, albeit from a distance of some sixty years; pointing it in the right direction is one thing, though, steering it there is another challenge altogether. The person at the helm needs to be clearly focused at every turn of the wheel on what he or she is doing, and why. No one is going to give a fifteen year-old girl a turn at that wheel. All the feisty spirit and good intentions in the world are no substitute for experience, and that falls under the remit of a good education, the more authoritative the better, to take us to a position of power; only then do we stand any chance of grabbing the wheel. It can be a long haul to get there, and it's a wise person who not only starts young but also Education as both mentor and ally.

If hope springs eternal, it is on the energy of youth that it best thrives. Hopefully, more like-minded people like Greta will see their way to positioning themselves where they can make actions speak louder than words; it is their future in the balance, after all. The tragedy is, that many if not most of us in any Here-and-Now cannot or will not see further than our own personal space.

Whatever, there is no room for apathy, and this Here-and-Now needs to show it can move forward, in every sense of the word, not only by way of invention and capability, but also by actively engaging with the greater among its leading players, he or she most trusted to steer the safer course.

My late mother once told me (40+ years ago, when climate change was barely on anyone's agenda) that I should always respect nature. "Earth Mother," she said, like any parent, will fight to the death to save her children, and She is no mean adversary. Anyone who thinks we can continue destroying forests, polluting the seas and killing animals to satisfy dietary preferences and fashion egos ... well, if you ask me, they and all of us are in for a rude awakening one of these days ..."

NATURE v HUMAN NATURE, BATTLE ROYAL

Patch of sky, a brilliant blue
among autumn leaves of red and gold
marking nature's 'live' show
for seeing eye and listening ear
to share one last fling
of a year's fruitfulness before winter
comes (for better, for worse)

Clouds gathering, anxious
not to play second fiddle to a spectacle.
of bright silvery sunlight,
like tears in time's eye, a curtain
sure to fall yet anxious
to be seen entering into the feisty spirit
of things, no missing out

Curtain down on autumn's
show of defiance meant to drive home
its alliance with all things
bright and beautiful, all creatures
great and small, promising
renewal despite a winter as certain to take
its toll as snow sure to fall

Barely have autumn's players
taken a last bow than a cruel north wind,
come to see them on their way,
stirs an out-of-sight, out-of-mind ethos
intended to undermine
any mind-body-spirit that might see itself
as the greater life force

Nature, though, is not yet done
with us, relying on its evergreens to bring
to mind its promises, the likes
of robin redbreast to keep eyes and ears
alert to that same spirit
of hopeful discontent that has seen humanity
rise above its worst winters

Curtain rising, all in due course,
but what is this? An empty stage, no players
rehearsed to act out another cycle
of life personifying humankind's attention
to nurture while promoting
a well-meaningfulness, stage name 'Progress'
for want of a better moniker

It is in the nature of humankind
to improve its lot, no matter the cost, whatever
it takes, but plenty signs already
of nature's matching any human spirit,
consequences for consequences,
cost for cost, season for season, for better
or worse, all things considered


Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

Global Warnings

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Most if not all of us fancy we see hear voices in the wind from time to time,. Maybe we should  pause and make time to listen...  

Fanciful, you say?  Yes, of course, but sometimes what we digest can do us a whole lot of good…so long as we can keep it down  rather than throw it up because we feel guilty for fancying it in the first place. It is high time we treated the natural world with the respect it deserves, not as a communal rubbish bin; nor killing vanishing species, for whatever reason, without putting safeguards in place to ensure their survival. Humankind has a collective responsibility towards all nature or Earth Mother will take the ultimate revenge, and it may well be the likes of you and me will not be found among any survivors 

GLOBAL WARNINGS

Listen to the rain

telling tales on people

running for cover

Listen to the trees

telling tales on people.

cutting to the quick

Listen to the birds

telling tales on people

shooting them down

Listen to the fishes

telling tales on people

poisoning the seas

Listen to the worms

telling tales on people

doctoring the soil

Listen to the wind

telling tales of people

on life support

Listen to the people

marching for the planet

while we still can

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, Time's Footprints

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Sometimes, we can be walking along without a care in the world, and then we spot something, as often as not quite trivial, that triggers a chain reaction taking us to places we would have much preferred to avoid…and once there, struggle to find our way back again.

It is true to say that time's footprints are sometimes those of hobnail boots, all but obliterating any prints that have gone before although, as an open heart is to bigotry, so humanity is to inhumanity, and all the more capable of regeneration. 

H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, TIME'S FOOTPRINTS

Scraps of a letter floating down a gutter,

pricking the occasional comfort zone

Wondering about blue ink stains, inwardly

debating the when, whose, and why

Doesn’t matter, of course, all history now,

heading in pieces for the nearest drain

Yet, someone had once made time to write,

feel, read (send?) decide to throw away

Secrets passing between lovers found out,

and punished, disowned…ever forgiven?

Friends, family, stranded on opposite sides

of some socio-cultural-religious divide?

Had someone discovered, betrayed, turned

finer feelings into anonymous ink stains?

Tearful, over scraps of a letter, potentially

sucking the life out of any one of us

Bad memories eagerly mowed down by rolls

of thunder, over anxious to leave no trace

Rain! Gutter, a river, scraps gone to sewage

under a city that stinks of rotten secrets

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

Maelstrom

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[Update: (April 8th 2017) Our hearts and thoughts go out today to the families and friends of those killed and injured in the horrific attack yesterday in Stockholm on innocent people going about their daily lives; it is being described as an act of terror. It is being widely reported that a man arrested has sympathies/links with so-called Islamic State. Yet again, decent people everywhere, from all socio-cultural-religious backgrounds, stand firm with the people of Sweden against the threat of terrorism from whatever misguided source.]

[Update: (March 24th 2016) This poem was written in 2007. Since then, the world the world has become and increasingly more dangerous place, not least due to the spread of radical Islam which we should never mistake for true Islam.  The horror of recent events in Brussels is nothing new to us. Yet, while our hearts go out to the families and friends of those so cruelly and senselessly killed simply for going about their daily lives, we must stand firm against these psychopaths, and not let fear dictate how we choose to live; our choice, not theirs.]

Some people, not only but especially religious fundamentalists, are inclined to get carried away by the prospect of martyrdom and welcome it; more often than not, this is a direct result of being mentally groomed and/or emotionally blackmailed into a deluded way of thinking by power-hungry leaders who (naturally) prefer to stay alive. 

The true martyr does not seek martyrdom for personal (including spiritual) gain but for the sake of honourable principles on which he or she refuses to compromise; there is no honour in taking and/or destroying the lives of innocent people.

Who deliberately seeks martyrdom to make a point, however important (to them, at least) deserves our contempt, yes, but perhaps also our pity? Pity for their having become mere tools in the hands of those they see as 'betters' but who, in reality, have surrendered their humanity to a distorted sense of and lust for power, both temporal and spiritual.

Fundamentalism is a threat to world peace, the more when it promotes martyrdom as a glorious ideal.

This poem is a villanelle.

MAELSTROM

No crueller wisdom

or faith more blindly placed

than in martyrdom

Life‘s tragic outcome,

love’s sacred trust misplaced;

no crueller wisdom

No prouder kingdom

better served by want and waste

than in martyrdom

By a beating drum,

each sound heartbeat replaced;

no crueller wisdom

No glory closer come

to grief, by holy words defaced,

than in martyrdom

Magnificent maelstrom,

supposedly to God’s door traced;

no crueller wisdom

than in martyrdom

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2016

[Note:  This poem has been revised (slightly but significantly) from the version that appears in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised version in e-format in preparation.]