Regular readers well know how I love wandering along the seashore
at any time of year, especially where I can travel through time and space to
relive and enjoy happy memories.
When I was a boy, and as a teenager, I would listen to seashells
and hear things no one else ever told me, reassurance I would not find at home
or school as I struggled to come to terms with life, love and an awakening
sexuality.
It was a habit that would never leave me and one I enjoy to this
day. Now, of course, I am growing old, although I suspect the need
for reassurance is rarely far away for any of us. Oh, and the tales the seashells tell me (whenever I am able to get to the seaside) are as inspirational as they ever were, if not more so which is very reassuring in a world where I like to think we LGBT folks are winning hearts and minds, but many of us still have to struggle to make our voices heard ...
G-A-Y, AN INSPIRED STORYTELLING
A collector’s prize seashell,
pretty on the outside, empty within
but for nature’s restless swell,
warning the world of its potential
for ruin…
I came, listening intently
to the shell’s graphic storytelling,
a fast growing empathy…
with twilight’s tides swirling
on the eye, magical tales
about everyday lives on the sea
as brave as Odysseus of old nor less
every one, a hero than he
Stirred by the sheer presence
of gay folks negotiating life’s tides
come storms or whatever forces
may see us to harbour or our graves,
I replaced the shell, oh, so gently
for others to find, hear all it has to say
on living life to the full, proudly, echoes
ringing in my ears to this day
ringing in my ears to this day
Heart lost, now navigating
its tides’ rise and fall, no empty shell
but fuller, bolder, for hearing tell
how nature defines and redefines us,
one and all…
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2016
[Note: This poem a revised version of a poem that appears as
‘Researching Seashells’ in On the Battlefields of Love by
R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]
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