A Word to the Wise

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

Some parents, especially mothers, so love their friends' children to be the best of friends. Mine was anxious to know why I had all but ignored a friend's son - a fellow pupil at my primary school - during a recent visit to their house, not far from where we lived. I recall shrugging and putting it to her that the other boy and I had nothing in common, unlike our respective parents. "I don't dislike him," I tried to explain, "... so much as, well, he's so different from me.We like different things and have little if anything in common so...what's the point?" "It's up to you, of course," my mother conceded, "...but there's a lot we can learn from each other's differences. Unfortunately, it's our differences that make the world the way it is rather than any willingness to learn from them." I shrugged off those words at the time, but they came back to haunt me at bedtime and have haunted me ever since.

Needless to say, we became good mates, that boy and me and, yes, we did learn a lot from each other even if it did take us awhile to agree to differ about (many) things without getting personal. We were never best friends, but always enjoyed each other's company. Indeed, when I finally came out to family and friends as a gay man, he was one of the first to say it made no difference, even quoting yours truly in so far as our differences do not make us different, only human.

A WORD TO THE WISE

Where did they all go,

days of childhood, where freedom

kept its word, any concerns

easily distracted by an enthusiasm

for new thing, new people

new avenues of thought less littered

with a narrow-mindedness

all too often found characterising

adulthood found wanting?

Where did they all go,

those days of emerging maturity

less fettered by the cares

and concerns of everyday survival.

still in the welcome grip

of curiosity, a sense of adventure,

an idealism tested

and found increasingly vulnerable

in as so-changing world?

Whatever happened

to halcyon days of early adulthood,

few leftover laurels

seen floating floods of opposition,

rejection and humiliation

touching base with needy conscience

and self-awareness, inciting

a rebel consciousness to explore ways

to make itself felt and heard?

Whatever happened

to that rebel in me, thinking to change

a world whose imperfections

are glossed over by a well-meaning

global consciousness, yet out

of touch with a common humanity

increasingly sensitive

to its much-divided politics and religions

all claiming to have answers?

No prescribed wisdom ever made less sense

than in any Here-and-Now

Copyright R. N. Taber 20194

[Note:This poem also appears on my general blog today.]