A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Thursday 4 October 2012

Poems By Passing Clouds & The Challenge (2 poems)

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

I posted a ‘Cloudscape’ video on You Tube yesterday and read one of my ‘cloud’ poems (The Challenge) over it: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

As I only posted The Challenge here in February, I am repeating another ‘cloud’ poem that has not appeared on the blog since 2010.

Today is National Poetry Day here in the UK. Here’s hoping that if you love clouds even half as much as I do, you will enjoy these poems…

POEMS BY PASSING CLOUDS

Some songs in the wind
only the trees ever hear
and even beasts and birds
never learn the words,
can but live by the descant
of hungry young in spring,
butterfly wings in summer,
falling leaves in autumn winds
bin bag puppies in winter

Some songs in the wind
only the trees ever hear,
no matter that humankind
imposes its own lyrics
(poor carbon copies passing
for popular reflections in
some subway busker’s eye)
sure to become global classics
since they make people cry

Some songs in the wind
only the trees ever hear,
will never let on they know
or beast and bird give up
on a world that humankind
likes to make out it knows
but dare not face the wind
with its, oh, so pathetic untruths,
lyrics sure to blow the mind

There’s a song in the wind
only the trees ever hear
about nature’s secret ways;
life, death, misadventure,
why it’s the good die young
more often than not, while
the old pressure the rest of us
not to forget long-ago, kinder days
but take a leaf from the trees

There’s a song in every tree
running rings around history

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010. 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; slightly rev. 7/19]


 THE CHALLENGE

There is a bridge between clouds
where we pause
who ponder on the purpose
on living just to die,
where the spirit unfulfilled,
the heart strayed
across certain boundaries society
has imposed (conventions)
so much the better to disguise
its worst intentions

There is a bridge between clouds
where we pause
who ask why the world below
has let us down…or did we
let ourselves and each other down
in the end
for never ceasing to demand more
than our fair share
of whatever peace and love
to be found there?

There is a bridge between clouds
where we’ll wait
our turn to cross…or be left
wishing deeds undone,
words unsaid, lies left creeping
under the tongue,
never to see the cold light of a day
when we must answer
to all its invidious shadows
may have heard us say

We can but cross, we children of Earth,
rise to the challenge of life over death

Copyright R. N. Taber 1984; 2010



Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,