Engaging with the Spiritual Nature of Love

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

Some people will argue that love is either platonic or romantic. Yet, there are various shades of love in between. For example, those same people might argue that sexual passion does not even come close to love, or even romance, and in many ways they would be right although any mutual sexual attraction has the potential for engaging with love in its own way. Even in sex for its own sake can take us beyond the parameters of simple pleasure while between two people who truly love each other there is invariably a spiritual dimension (that has little or nothing to do with religion) in the coming together not only of bodies but also minds, elements of mind-body-spirit experiencing a  sense of fulfilment that dims with neither age nor time.

And then there is rapport. There can be such a rapport between friends that may not be romantic, but is far more than the everyday platonic.

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2009. I wrote it a few months after the death of a very dear friend who was also an occasional lover. He was not the love of my life nor was I his, yet we were able to physically as well as emotionally comfort and inspire each other in a way I cannot describe.

While it’s true to say (technically at least) that we were occasional lovers, we never thought of each other as such, but only very close friends.  Our relationship is the only one I have ever had that transcended platonic while never coming close to such heights of feeling I would experience when  being with the one great love of my life.

My friend died of AIDS some years ago. If he was still here and I was still sexually active, he would be yelling at me as he once did, ‘Make sure you play as safe as it gets, Rogie, and damn well get yourself tested because there’s no such bloody thing as foolproof.’  He was a lovely guy and would have been 70 years-old today.

No, it this not a gay poem. But then love doesn’t give a damn who or what we are, does it? It leaves that to those content to remain slaves to certain historical conventions, dogma, culture, whatever...for which, thankfully, the human spirit is more than a match when challenged by any or all.

ENGAGING WITH THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF LOVE

Death, rippling the summer corn

like the stirrings of a child unborn,

wondering in the womb - what

freedom between cage and tomb?

I lift my head to a gorgeous sky,

loose a few more dreams, watch them fly

like the tail of a child’s kite

flapping bravely against heaven’s might.

Now, barely a flicker, waved out

of sight with tearful eye and puckered brow,

the child I was, resuming now

across wintry years to wet an eye

that might have stayed dry

in the summer air, seeking all it never found,

hurting without making a sound,

feasting on harvest corn, caged in a breast

deprived of rest, tired of hearing

all’s for the best, weary of waiting

for waiting’s end, lonely for want

of a dear friend running free in summer corn,

smiling wistfully at me who’s left

with a heavy heart to somehow weather

the pain that’s let us part, cut to quick

by a look on your face that says this world

could have been a kinder place...

Music, murmuring a summer breeze

like a guitar strummed with artist’s ease

to lull earth’s restless womb

before the breaking of a Great Storm

spreading alarm amongst the corn.

I spot a field mouse (or maybe not?)

so tiny, quick, soon forgot, and should hasten

my own tread, the music fair bursting

in my head. Oh love, life! Instead, I’ll linger

in this summer place and to the wind

I’ll lift the face of one who is, oh, so happy

for witnessing this transcending

of our history, passing into such natural beauty

as I’d forgot is no less a part of me

than these shoes badly worn through a world

sadly torn in two, three, and more...by love,

hate and war; famine too, I have to say,

as in the corn I kneel to pray although to what

or whom (in this life) we may never know.

Ah, dear friend, I grieve to let you go, but joyous

for a chance to give thanks for a love

we shared that’s alive in me, keeping us close

though you pass into a spirituality Time

likes to keeps secret from us, but for kisses

to remind that what was, still IS...

Storm breaks, yet returns me to a kinder world

for a summer playing love songs in my head

Copyright R. N. Taber 1993; 2001; 2017

[Note: This poem has been slightly but significantly revised from an earlier version that first appeared under the title, 'Once More, Dear Friend' in an anthology, How Can You Write A Poem When You’re Dying of AIDS? ed. John Harold, Cassell, 1993 and Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]