My class
of 1959 was once challenged by a teacher to sum up the meaning of life in one word.
People
gave various answers; ambition, achievement/s, sport, family, friendship,
music, survival...
For me, it had to be love although I was only 14 years-old
at the time and still coming to terms with my emerging sexuality, so the best was yet
to come.
Whatever, life is too short to live it according to any code of socio-cultural-religious convention to which the heart does not fully subscribe; the mind may work in mysterious ways, but the human spirit is a match for anything and anyone if we but believe in ourselves.
Whatever, life is too short to live it according to any code of socio-cultural-religious convention to which the heart does not fully subscribe; the mind may work in mysterious ways, but the human spirit is a match for anything and anyone if we but believe in ourselves.
AN INCREDIBLE
JOURNEY
A gay
love blessed can hurt,
its
wounds fester, let in snake venom;
jealousy,
bitterness, hate even
in a
dark, lonely, wretched, heaven
a great
sadness creeping in,
killing
off its angels one by one;
in a
weepy twilight all of love’s own,
embracing
its bitter-sweet pain
Yet,
listen! Birds, flowers,
friendly
ghosts in the clouds, singing
of life
and hope, fair sunsets,
sunrises, faery
mists, summer kisses
autumn
leaves, shades of red
and gold,
stories at winter fires told
of love
eternal, no self-pity, but thanks
for
making its incredible journey
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]
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