http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Another reader has asked why I often hyphenate several nouns to imply they are
one -e.g. past-present-future and mind-body-spirit; it's because I see them as
inseparable one from the other, a continuum in which we human beings are
pivotal, for better, for worse ...
Meanwhile …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=745Auxo0Z0Q :
While health concerns have prevented my from adding to my YouTube channel for a long time now, it is encouraging to see that it is still visited from time to time. I read the poem for it, and my best friend, Graham Collett, made the video; it relates, among other things, toa time, some forty years ago, when I was still coming to terms with my sexuality and learning how to shrug off various offensive stereotypes the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority continue (even now) to attach to gay men and women worldwide. I had the strongest sense that nature was on my side, and was only too happy to let The Green Man, close kin to Earth Mother, play a part in rescuing me from doubt and near despair. (I added the alternative title much later.)
I have always had a very close relationship with nature and see no reason why my being gay should get in the way of that. To those who argue that gay relationships are 'unnatural', I say that sexuality comes with the gift of life; it is as much a part of nature and human nature as the act of giving birth, and what could be more natural than that? Those among us for whom it is all but a reflex action to condemn what (or who) they don't understand might do well to pause long enough to consider how all of us comprising a common humanity are different and how (and why) it is those same differences that make us human.
Where differences for some may imply a common weakness, for others they confirm a common strength.
Sadly, many if not most gay-unfriendly people are those with heads buried in sand; they cannot (or will not) see how the more misleading, often offensive stereotypical view of a person - or groups of people - is invariably biased against them from the start and will rarely if ever stand up to objective, constructive, criticism.
THE
GREEN MAN or COME, LIVE THE DREAM
Walking in woods one day,
a beautiful stranger came my way,
a youth dressed all in green,
sweet breath chasing clouds away,
in sunny hair, a leafy crown
The young man beckoned me
to take a path I’d not followed before;
I did just that, unhesitatingly,
so commanding, if fair, a look and air
of ages-old majesty
Trees, brambles, wild flowers,
making an impressive if chaotic show,
we sprinted autumn’s hours,
keeping pace with its bold amber glow,
undeterred by leafy showers
We came at last to a pretty glade
where the young man bade me lie down
on a spacious grassy bed
then lay beside me, took me for his own
and I, oh, so gladly responded
Pleasurably spent, I slept till dawn,
[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]
Today's poem first appeared on the
blog in 2010 and is one of several that readers asked me to include in my
collection Tracking the Torchbearer (2012).
Meanwhile …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=745Auxo0Z0Q :
While health concerns have prevented my from adding to my YouTube channel for a long time now, it is encouraging to see that it is still visited from time to time. I read the poem for it, and my best friend, Graham Collett, made the video; it relates, among other things, toa time, some forty years ago, when I was still coming to terms with my sexuality and learning how to shrug off various offensive stereotypes the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority continue (even now) to attach to gay men and women worldwide. I had the strongest sense that nature was on my side, and was only too happy to let The Green Man, close kin to Earth Mother, play a part in rescuing me from doubt and near despair. (I added the alternative title much later.)
I have always had a very close relationship with nature and see no reason why my being gay should get in the way of that. To those who argue that gay relationships are 'unnatural', I say that sexuality comes with the gift of life; it is as much a part of nature and human nature as the act of giving birth, and what could be more natural than that? Those among us for whom it is all but a reflex action to condemn what (or who) they don't understand might do well to pause long enough to consider how all of us comprising a common humanity are different and how (and why) it is those same differences that make us human.
Where differences for some may imply a common weakness, for others they confirm a common strength.
Sadly, many if not most gay-unfriendly people are those with heads buried in sand; they cannot (or will not) see how the more misleading, often offensive stereotypical view of a person - or groups of people - is invariably biased against them from the start and will rarely if ever stand up to objective, constructive, criticism.
‘Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.’ – Goethe
‘A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.’ – John Lennon
Walking in woods one day,
a beautiful stranger came my way,
a youth dressed all in green,
sweet breath chasing clouds away,
in sunny hair, a leafy crown
The young man beckoned me
to take a path I’d not followed before;
I did just that, unhesitatingly,
so commanding, if fair, a look and air
of ages-old majesty
Trees, brambles, wild flowers,
making an impressive if chaotic show,
we sprinted autumn’s hours,
keeping pace with its bold amber glow,
undeterred by leafy showers
We came at last to a pretty glade
where the young man bade me lie down
on a spacious grassy bed
then lay beside me, took me for his own
and I, oh, so gladly responded
Pleasurably spent, I slept till dawn,
woke,
not in the wood of our lovemaking
(the
Green Man, too, was gone)
but
where once I’d be tossing and turning
for
fear I was a bad person
A dream, yes, but also nature’s way
of
reassuring a youth so tormented by shame
there
is none in being gay;
we
have but to give the Green Man a name
and
live to love another day
[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]
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