Where Do We Go From Here?

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

I wrote today’s poem in 1963 and only slightly revised it in 2010. I would have been 18 years-old that year. Gay relationships were illegal in the UK until 1967, the year I was 22. I will never forget those torturous years between awakening to my sexuality at 14 years-old and being openly gay once and for all (no ducking back into the closet whenever I got scared) in my 30s. Oh, I managed to get plenty of sex, but it was all very furtive during my teens and I lived a lie for some years afterwards too.  Well, yes, I say furtive, but cannot deny that much of it was great fun. I guess, discovering and learning more about our sexuality can be a very mixed blessing at times, especially if you happen to be growing up in a gay-unfriendly home environment.

It may not strike you as a particularly good poem, but may give those readers who keep asking why I ‘defend’ gay people who refuse to be open about their sexuality. It is not about defending, but understanding. There are so many reasons why gay people worldwide have to stay in that cold, dark closet for as long as they do; a lifetime for some. If the reader who wrote to tell me that ‘gays have never had it so good so shut up about the down side and be positive’ lived in parts of the southern hemisphere, he would not be so cocky. And there are plenty of gay people in the West, too, whose family ties appear very strong but would snap were just one family member to come out and say he or she is gay.

I am positive about being gay, but few openly gay people need help to feel positive about their sexuality whereas those who feel, for whatever reason, they must be secretive...they do need help and reassurance; they do need encouragement to feel positive about their sexual identity, and not take on the mantle of shame and guilt imposed on us for centuries by the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority.

Where do YOU go from here?

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The world is a dark place,

and Nature shows a cruel face,

has neither, time or space

for someone like me?

Yet, the world is a huge place

and Nature can show a kind face,

so time and space (surely?)

for someone like me

The world is my enemy

and Nature dead set against me,

fat chance against history

for people like me?

Yet, somewhere walks a friend

who will fight to the end

of time and space (surely?)

for people like me

By nature’s finer grace

we are come to this dark place

concealing time and space

from people like us;

yet sun shines and moon,

and a time soon when

time and space letting light in

for people like us

So what are we waiting for?

Let’s go, grab our share

Copyright R. N. Taber 1963; 2010