Agenda for a Cull OR Witnesses for the Prosecution

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

 “Each spring, the Canadian government authorizes fishermen to club or shoot to death hundreds of thousands of baby seals for their fur,” writes the Humane Society of the United States. This is a reference to the fact that the vast majority of harp seals killed are between one and 3.5 months old. However, some context might be in order. "Those rotisserie chickens at the grocery store were likely alive for only 40 days. The average pack of bacon comes from a pig that was only on earth for four months." - National Post, April 2018

I’m so glad I have been a pescatarian or some years now, almost vegan since being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014. (Why 'almost'? I haven't yet been able to give up fish completely.)

This poem is a villanelle.

AGENDA FOR A CULL  or  WITNESSES FOR THE PROSECUTION

Seal pups dying,

a culling to complete;

ice caps crying

Bargains wing

around the tourist beat;

seal pups dying

Come spring

craving summer’s heat,

ice caps crying

The done thing

to hit alt-control-delete;

seal pups dying

Words but piling

coals on the global heat;

ice caps crying

G8 (still) trying

to make ends meet;

Seal pups dying,

ice caps crying...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007. 2018

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

Making Peace with Progress (On the Waterways of Britain)

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

I wrote today’s poem to accompany the video my friend GrahamCollett shot some time ago for my You Tube channel (a team effort). Feedback suggests that some readers cannot always access You Tube so you can watch it here (see video at the bottom of this page) and listen to me reading the poem  over it OR tune into it directly on You Tube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA8VQoPgX2M

Alternatively, if the link does not work, go to my You Tube Channel and search by title:

 http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

After my being incapacitated for over a year following a bad fall in August 2014, we thought it would be a good idea to test new video software with some earlier - previously unpublished - footage  before proceeding to edit/post the next (recent) video/poem to You Tube comprising footage of The Gift Horse sculpture on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. Watch this space…]

The video shows a section of the Kennet and Avon Canal, a waterway in southern England made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal; the name is commonly used to refer to the entire length rather than just the central canal section. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks, one of which you can see in the video. The two river stretches were made navigable in the early 18th century, and the 57-mile (92 km) canal section was constructed between 1794 and 1810.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the canal gradually fell into disuse after the opening of the Great Western Railway. In the latter half of the 20th century the canal was restored in stages, largely by volunteers. After decades of dereliction requiring much restoration work, it was fully reopened in 1990. Since developed as a popular heritage tourism location for boating, canoeing, fishing, walking and cycling, it is also important for its wildlife.

This poem that I read over the video (also in the Description on You Tube) is a villanelle.

MAKING PEACE WITH PROGRESS (ON THE WATERWAYS OF BRITAIN)

On the waterways of Britain
(many neglected for years)
Man and nature as one again

Compensating for acid rain,
find honest sweat and tears
on the waterways of Britain

Ever mindful of loss and gain,
(Oh, spirited volunteers!)
Man and nature as one again

A testament to industry’s pain,
toiling through its centuries
on the waterways of Britain

Hosting the occasional swan,
even water voles and otters,
Man and nature as one again

Among such, pages written
of a nation’s finer endeavours;
on the waterways of Britain,
Man and nature as one again


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Where Did all the Baby Otters Go ?

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

We take nature too much for granted. If we are not careful, by the time we wake up to the beauty of a natural world on our doorsteps, its beauty may well be but a distant memory for any survivors of a dying planet.

Although hunted less than in the past because their fur isn’t the money maker it used to be, pollution and global warming remain huge threats to otters... as it does to all of us.

WHERE DID ALL THE BABY OTTERS GO?

Once, a stream that ran down a mountain,

through this gutted forest, that daisy field,

joined sewage spilling without correction

over banks where once baby otters played

Humankind, it challenged the mountain,

would feed also at Earth Mother's breast,

but the life-giving milk turned to poison

till only the mountain survived all the rest

The snows of the mountain slowly melted,

flooding forests, fields, humankind. beast;

Everyman, eventually, compelled to admit

its share of the blame, neither all nor least

Copyright R N Taber 2005, 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Requiem For A Skylark/ Nature Trail (Two short poems)

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

Enjoying nature has to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. Here in the UK, as elsewhere in the world, it is down to each and every one of us to save as many of its green and pleasant places and wildlife habitats as possible for future generations...or they will not easily forgive us, if ever.

REQUIEM FOR A SKYLARK

On tuneful wing, our seasons

scanning, circles and dips

anxiously a covenant

with Earth's poetry, where

once a nesting tree

grew tall

Now, a shopping

mall

 NATURE TRAIL

Follow leafy trails

into red and orange,

silver, green;

let the dew of life

wash clean our

dirty hands;

be still, antic winds

till nothing's heard

but an egg-bird;

a tear in the eye,

all our yesterdays

on standby

[From: First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002]

Poor Sparrow

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

While this overcrowded island of ours badly needs more (affordable) housing, we must protect what remains of our green and pleasant land. So many birds are losing their natural habitats. This is not only bad news for the, but bad news for us too.

Let’s all speak up to save our trees and woodlands, and make sure there are always green fields nearby for everyone to enjoy, especially our children, and wildlife too… 

POOR SPARROW

Once a village, quickly became a town;

green fields now a housing estate

where we lowered poor sparrow down

In lanes we’d watch the harvest sown,

now highways, commuters running late;

once a village, quickly became a town

Of daisies a tree nymph’s spring gown

within creak, squeak, of a trellis gate

where we lowered poor sparrow down

More peace and quiet than ever known,

though small politics its fishwives berate;

once a village, quickly became a town

Office blocks where kites once flown,

nature’s finest gone for cheapskate

where we lowered poor sparrow down

Long years past, we children grown,

memories like sunlight on wet roof slate;

once a village, quickly became a town

where we lowered poor sparrow down

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Who Speaks Up for the Trees?

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

A reader has been in touch to say she would never travel on the London Underground again following the tragic events of July 7th 2005 in which she lost a close friend. Similarly, she would never visit the USA because ‘... it has to be a high profile target for terrorists.’

While I can understand and sympathise with how she feels, terrorists can strike anywhere at any time. We can but remain hopeful that we will leave our homes for work or whatever and return safely. Besides, if we give in to our fear of terrorists and their misguided belief that they are entitled, for whatever reason, to force their views on others by means that confirm the existence of evil in the world… they have won.

Dare I suggest that Earth Mother, too, should be on her guard against those set n destroying the environment? There is an eco terrorism that I suspect is as great a threat to us all as its human counterpart, if not more so in the longer term. (I have always had the mind-body-spirit of an eco-warrior if not the bare-faced nerve to put my eco-convictions to the test - yet.)

WHO SPEAKS UP FOR THE TREES?

We are two so-splendid trees
standing tall at the edge
of a wood, conspiring with song
and laughter, symphony
and poetry made to run the gamut
of a blessed serendipity

All loves, hates, jealousies,
in shades of evergreen
on the finest canvas ever seen 

only to be redefined
by all humankind along along lines
of well-meaning insanity

Would-be giants, sentinels
of a civilization
protective of its own, pawns
in a civilization feeding
on ages of rewriting human history
and its blood stained pages

Inciting song and laughter,
music and poetry,
humanity acknowledging a duty 

to save our woodlands
for generations while selling off trees

to property developers

Who looks down at twin logs
and sees us as we were
or hears leafy winds whispering
names of any cut down

in their prime here, there, everywhere,

no matter the time of year?

Oh, but the world may yet rue
its short sightedness
in scarring nature's face (or worse)
forgetting we were here first,
and how who laughs last so often laughs
the louder and longest

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Patchwork

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

Today's poem last appeared on the blog in 2008. Some readers may care to see/hear me read it among others on various themes on the 4^th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square in July 2006 as part of Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘living sculpture’ project for which 2400 people from all walks of life in the UK were invited to ‘do their own thing’ for one hour 24/7 over 100 days. The entire web-stream is now archived in the British Library and this is my contribution. Some readers have asked if I can send them a CD, but Sky Arts refused to let any of the participants have one so anyone who may want to watch it again needs to make a note of the link:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T - [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18

  

Surely, there are few sights more encouraging or reassuring than to watch this sorry world of ours close down rather splendidly if a trifle disturbingly and only temporarily, of course...as if inviting us to do the same?

PATCHWORK

Dusk, a patchwork quilt spread

over trees and meadows’

warren, set, foxhole, well hid

from prying eyes

Late birds on slight, misty wing

heading for the nest;

walkers, ramblers, hastily

checking compasses

Children at play looking out

for text messages;

Middle England, on the edge

of things temporal

Green campaigners counting

hard won laurels;

curtain closing on one last peep

at a hazy beauty

Tasting raw smells of earthiness

and buttermilk sky;

empathy with a nightingale’s

plea to be left in peace

Random stars brought down,

like clay pigeons

by bonfires in back gardens

always taking liberties

Bats, alley cats, all putting a shine

on the Sandman’s boot

whose task to get us ready

for the next clay shoot

World, coming together briefly

to try and patch us up

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2012

[Note: The appearance of this poem on the page has been revised from an earlier version first published in Nature's Tapestry, an anthology compiled for Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2002 and The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

The Squirrel

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

I don’t have a garden now, but look out on one and love to watch the antics of squirrels and other wildlife. I often wonder what they make of us...???

THE SQUIRREL

The sun, it shone like a torch among shadows
as we walked misty paths, a friend and I,
observed by a grey squirrel scratching its nose
with its paws, curious perhaps about humans
(why male and female on hind legs, baring claws?)

We parried words in that fast dimming twilight,
guided by the anger in each other’s eyes,
observed by the grey squirrel scratching its nose
with its paws, curious perhaps about humans
(why, even come eventide, making so much noise?)

Sun and shadows, they surrendered to a frosty night,
and stars looked down on us with much the same
curiosity as the squirrel, finished scratching its nose
with its paws, given up caring about humans
(now warring, now hugging or taking other liberties)

Now, whenever I see a squirrel scratching its nose,
I wonder…whatever happened to us?

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]