http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
In the meantime, let us enjoy autumn for all its glorious colours and the sense of eternal optimism these are surely meant to inspire in us, an optimism that well may fail us from time to time...but, as my late mother once said, there is an eternal springtime of the loving, hopeful heart sure to inspire and help us through all the seasons of life, even the hardest of its winters...if we will but keep faith with it. When I pointed out that I was not a religious person, she simply responded to the effect that no religion has a monopoly on love and hope since we are all born with a potential capacity for both. How far we choose to apply it, she would argue, has more to do with human nature than religion. (My mother was a Christian, but like all the more remarkable religious-minded people, whatever their religion, she closed her heart and mind to no one.)
Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2014.
I will be publishing fewer posts/poems on the blogs for some time while I concentrate on updating previous editions of my collections and preparing a new one. Again, I will Having been unable to interest any publishers/ agents in a mix of general and gay -interest poems, I will probably self-publish the latter but only have 200 or so copies printed; new editions of previous collections will only be available online and I will le everyone know when they are available to be uploaded.
People often tell me they find autumn a sad month because
it means winter is closing in, but as I have often pointed out on my blogs…
after winter, spring.
Better, surely, to look forward to spring than dread
winter?
In the meantime, let us enjoy autumn for all its glorious colours and the sense of eternal optimism these are surely meant to inspire in us, an optimism that well may fail us from time to time...but, as my late mother once said, there is an eternal springtime of the loving, hopeful heart sure to inspire and help us through all the seasons of life, even the hardest of its winters...if we will but keep faith with it. When I pointed out that I was not a religious person, she simply responded to the effect that no religion has a monopoly on love and hope since we are all born with a potential capacity for both. How far we choose to apply it, she would argue, has more to do with human nature than religion. (My mother was a Christian, but like all the more remarkable religious-minded people, whatever their religion, she closed her heart and mind to no one.)
SPIRIT OF AUTUMN
Autumn leaves ...
Drifting by my
window
like dreams I
have nurtured
with love and
care
in the garden
of my life
where some
flowered
in their season
while others
were battered by
wind and rain,
never to be
seen again
Autumn leaves ...
Whirling by my
window
like dervishes
in a frenzied
dance of life
and death,
sustained by a
rage to seize
the day, come
what may,
on the
battlefields of my life
where I have
risked all to prove
a born capacity
for love
Autumn leaves ...
Clinging to my
window
as Apollo
clings to the last patch
of blue before
sunset,
bids nature and
human nature
rest easy on
hard won laurels,
so-brief enough
reprieve before
more rude
awakenings to a world
falling on its
sword
Autumn leaves ...
Ripped from my
window
like pages of
memory best left
to whims of wind and rain
while I enjoy
each dreamy leaf,
petal and blade
of grass
found in the
garden of my life
whose choirs
heard singing each day
of my pride in
being gay
Autumn leaves,
tears of Earth Mother
for any that
cannot see beyond winter
Copyright R.
N. Taber 2014; 2020
[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general blog today] RNT
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