http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Today's poem first appeared on my general poetry blog in 2014. A gay-friendly straight reader has asked me to repeat it here " ... for a workmate who only reads your gay-interest blog ..."
The closest I come to any religious sense of spirituality is in considering myself a Pantheist. While the idea of a personified God is an anathema to me, I can envisage God as nature or even Earth Mother; for a start, a mixed gender God is more likely to have our spiritual survival at heart.
As a gay man, I resent various socio-cultural-religious groups arguing that I cannot possibly nurture and treasure the sense of spirituality I hold dear. For my part, I would argue that no religion has a monopoly on spirituality since the human spirit generates its own, regardless. Moreover, a bond with nature, for as long as I can remember, both confirms and nurtures this sense of spirituality in me that I once sought but never found in religion. Besides, I cannot envisage any God that would reject anyone on the grounds of their sexuality, not because I am gay, but because God has to be bigger than human ... well, doesn't He or She, whom I once read or heard somewhere referred to as "The Torchbearer."
Today's poem first appeared on my general poetry blog in 2014. A gay-friendly straight reader has asked me to repeat it here " ... for a workmate who only reads your gay-interest blog ..."
The closest I come to any religious sense of spirituality is in considering myself a Pantheist. While the idea of a personified God is an anathema to me, I can envisage God as nature or even Earth Mother; for a start, a mixed gender God is more likely to have our spiritual survival at heart.
As a gay man, I resent various socio-cultural-religious groups arguing that I cannot possibly nurture and treasure the sense of spirituality I hold dear. For my part, I would argue that no religion has a monopoly on spirituality since the human spirit generates its own, regardless. Moreover, a bond with nature, for as long as I can remember, both confirms and nurtures this sense of spirituality in me that I once sought but never found in religion. Besides, I cannot envisage any God that would reject anyone on the grounds of their sexuality, not because I am gay, but because God has to be bigger than human ... well, doesn't He or She, whom I once read or heard somewhere referred to as "The Torchbearer."
As each day closes for a night of preparing for dawn - and vice versa - we hopefully anticipate the next performance; and so it goes on with life, death, love and nature tracking The Torchbearer across time and space ...
ON WITH THE MOTLEY or NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE, IN THE ROUND
See late evening clouds billowing
bulbous folds of a Big Top
Leafy shapes performing in trees;
trapeze artistes in sequins
Spring breeze rippling through it all;
old gods and new, laughing…
Sun’s last blushes on a white dove;
paint on the face of a clown
Lovers in best complimentary seats
enjoying candy floss kisses
Faces shutting down (show's over),
parading back into their cages
Nature poetry, playing ring master
to the greatest show on earth
Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2018
Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2018
[Note: This poem has been slightly revised since first appearing under the title 'On with the Motley' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]
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