The Visionary, a Man of Substance

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

As regular readers well know, I never post comments but always read and appreciate them, even the less kind ones. 

Meanwhile…

Someone once asked me if I had any heroes. I replied that, off the top of my head, Martin Luther King is the first name that springs to mind. The person who posed the question appeared genuinely puzzled because King was black and I am white, asking, "Didn't he champion equal rights for black people?" Of course he did, but ‘equal rights’ is the key phrase here.

I am passionate about equality and a common humanity, passionate too about peace and love and how the people of this world should respect each other’s differences instead of using them as an excuse for stirring up division and unrest, even wars.

All that is good in the world is worth fighting for and all that is bad cries out to be exposed and (hopefully) rectified…however long it takes.

I was in my early 20s when Dr King was assassinated. Yes, his legacy is perhaps cherished most among black people but this is one white poet who learned a lot from this great man whom I have long counted among my heroes and always will. Although no poem can do justice to the man and his work, it was written in good faith.

Regular readers will know I am not a religious person in so far as I do not subscribe to any of the world religions, but, as I see it, that shouldn't prevent me admiring someone  who spoke out against prejudice and inequality at a time when both were much in evidence, and sadly remain so in many communities and parts of the world to this day. Indeed, the irony of poet, Robert Browning's words, 'God's in His heaven/ All's right with the world.' (from Pippa Passes) has never been lost on yours truly since I first encountered it as a schoolboy in the 1950's.😉

THE VISIONARY, A MAN OF SUBSTANCE 

He had a Dream, shared it with the world;
many listened, but others would not,
(some learn lessons taught, others soon forget)
given human nature's common inclination
to deny home truths to deserving ears, regardless
of who we are or where we stand on the need
to bring certain socio-cultural-political agendas
in line with such common realities as test
its communities, prove how actions speak louder
than words regarding its flaws 

Nor should it matter, the colour of his skin
only the shades of its naming, shaming 
such pain and prejudices as bigots feast upon
to show a world inept at stitching its seams,
patches always at the ready to cover any flaws,
proof of its failing to put us (all) through
our paces, unite even populaces in those places
least inclined to acknowledge injustices;
rhetoric, sweetener enough to prevent home truths
shouting from too many rooftops 

All that glisters is not gold nor all that’s aged
grown old, however much we’ve seen
since time began and taught us how to dream,
envisaging humanity running true without
having to shoot down any living thing too close
for comfort, posing a threat to personal space,
blurring thoughts of a common humanity 
in whose future we (all) can play a lead part 
by encouraging its more honest brokers to speak out
on all that's (still) not right with it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004, rev.2021 

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; a later version that appeared on the blog  in 2013  has been since revised again in 2021.] RNT