Winter Warmers

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

It is only human nature to be curious. From time to time, people have asked me (usually in good faith) what it’s like to be gay. They might as well have asked what it’s like to be a human being.  It is our differences, after all, that make us human.

These days, the same people are more likely to ask what it’s like to be growing old! (I was 68 yesterday, the winter solstice.)

Now, some people warn against looking back and insist we should only look forward. I see where they are coming from, but as I get older, I take great pleasure in mulling over happy times. Moreover, I come through the experience feeling more ready, willing and able to take on whatever the future may have in store, including death.  No, I am not being morbid. Death is as much a part of life as life itself so where’s the harm in thinking about it sometimes? Thinking about issues can lend them a degree of familiarity in the mind’s eye; the more familiar we are with them, the less afraid we become.

I have had my fair share of ups and downs in life and had to cope with regular bouts of depression since early childhood. Even so, in the sense that I don’t have the HIV-AIDS virus, I have led a charmed life!  

While relatively few of my gay-interest poems are strictly autobiographical, there is a lot of ‘me’ in all of them as I try to recapture something of that charmed life and pass it on for others to enjoy.

  

COMFORT AND JOY

The hair is greyer

than yesterday;

one more furrow

on the brow;

sight a shade less clear

than it used to be;

hearing, yes, definitely

getting worse…

What now?

A kind heart beats

as yesterday;

no fewer dreams

to inspire…

still time enough to learn

from life’s ups

and downs, good to chat

with old friends…

By the fire

Counting blessings

in the flames;

seeing (oh, so, clearly)

my flaws, mistakes,

but at peace with myself,

and my sexuality,  

mortality, too, since even

at my worst…

I did my best

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2011

[Note: This poem has been slightly but significantly revised from an earlier version that first appeared in an anthology, Mind Games, Poetry Today (Forward Press) 2001 and subsequently in  First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]