A Beautiful Thing

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

My poem takes its title from a delightful gay movie of the same name. It is one of relatively few mainstream movies (available on DVD) that I have seen whose story line turns on the developing relationship between two schoolboys. [Do so many parents and teachers really think gay men and women emerge into adulthood out of thin air?]

Now, parents sometimes get in touch to ask what they should so about a gay son or daughter. Do? What else, but continue to love and support them?

Gay or straight, love is a beautiful thing; it may be for a person, a place or even an idea. Whatever, it sows seeds in mind, body and spirit that will float like seeds in the wind long after we are gone.

Anyone suggestion that love is any the less beautiful for two lovers being gay is not only a gross distortion of the facts but downright sacrilegious in so far as it undermines the spiritual quality of love as supposedly endorsed by all world religions. Gay voices, though, are as seeds in the wind sure to settle and grow even where socio-cultural-religious bigotry continues to pursue its fight to flourish...

A BEAUTIFUL THING 

Though a day be my last on the good earth

and I regret many things I have done,

I’ll bring hopes of a second chance, rebirth,

to whatever we like to call ‘Heaven’

Though a breath be my last in Nature’s arms,

the world’s judgement upon me unkind,

I will submit to her dear, evergreen charms,

trusting in Peace to be always at hand

Though an eye look its last on a bird’s wing

as it soars with grace and kisses the sky,

I’ll clasp to my heart love’s beautiful thing

that has blessed me and will not let us die

For knowing you, needing you, loving you;

seeds in the wind - gay, free and true

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from an earlier version that appears in 1^st (print) eds. of A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; new (revised) ed. in e-format in preparation.]