In Praise of Perennials OR Survivors, Making History

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

Regular readers will know I have prostate cancer and have been receiving hormone therapy. I am trying to take it all in my stride. Think positive, Taber, I keep telling myself, and urge anyone in the same or similar circumstances to do the same.

The body as well as mind and spirit need to stay strong if they are to defeat any intruders that present a threat. Whatever happens, why deny ourselves the satisfaction of putting up a good fight? Letting things (or people) get us down only makes a bad situation worse.

Few if any of us can say, hand on heart, that we never have ‘bad’ days. It is a challenge to get through as least scarred as possible by problems, crises, disappointments, nasty shocks and/or scary happenings...whatever.

Me, I take my cue from nature. Mind you, that’s after taking several long, slow, deep breaths and counting to ten....

IN PRAISE OF PERENNIALS or SURVIVORS, MAKING HISTORY

I am the spirit of the wind

writing poems for trees, turning leaves

just as humankind turns select pages

of history, Creation taking imagination

to its heart and turning it

into a religion, nurturing growth

independent of home truths

daring to question how best to raise

born again geraniums

I am the spirit of the wind,

no sooner rocking a baby in its cradle

and composing a lullaby than pitting

sailors against  moody waves as fickle 

as the Holy See towards gay 

and transgender folks standing up 

for love and peace, re-asserting

that common body, mind, and spirit

aspiring to enlightenment

I am the spirit of the wind

treating the eagle and the dove

with equal favour or cruelty,

as Earth Mother has demonstrated

since Creation took imagination

to its heart and turned it into a religion,

stunting growth, leaving home truths

so vulnerable to decay in the thick

of a long, weepy, autumn

Perennials, like ghosts in the wind,

templates for humankind…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]