Monday, 31 August 2020

Trailblazers


A new poem today, a tell-tale sign that I am fighting depression; the latest of many battles against an old enemy; thanks to creative therapy of the kind writing poetry provides that I may well lose some, but am winning the war.

Charles Darwin changed the way we think about the origin of our species; Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that continues to inspire the Black Lives Matter campaign;  closer to home, here in the UK, footballer Marcus Rashford has successfully called for free school meals for children from poorer families while schools are closed; actor Chadwick Boseman who has tragically died of colon cancer at the age of 43 has left an inspiring legacy for black actors worldwide … all these, and many others, are trailblazers and will remain trailblazers, a ‘live’ posthumous consciousness in hearts and minds worldwide.

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” Oscar Wilde  

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." 

- James Baldwin 

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”  
- Martin Luther King Jr.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” -  Helen Keller
  

TRAILBLAZERS

Assume nothing of humankind,
the Here-and-Now, part reality, part dream
fronting backroads of the mind
fuelling human nature, potential for nurture
(for better, for worse, gift or curse)
where formative years dare come into play
in the making, shaping of all we are
subject to question, reason and human nature’s
expectation of our futures

Ignore any negative voices
never backward in coming forward to tear
into human choices failing the test
of whatever is best for the rest of us has to be
right, invariably losing sight
of any aspiration, inspiration, presented
as a Human Right, while prevented
from seeing the light of day if failing to conform
to some ‘acceptable’ norm

Acceptable to whom, we may ask
having reached a point where we feel confident
of whatever task ahead may well be
misinterpreted under such various pretensions
designed to present gender identity,
and sexuality as a perverse intellectuality
failing (altogether)to see diversity
as a plus, not a minus, an acknowledged integrity
across a common humanity


Dare let that inner self go free, and pit itself against
any socio-cultural-sexual angst...?

Copyright R/ N. Taber, 2020

[Note; This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today.]

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