http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
It is news to no one that feel-good factors comes in many shapes and forms; romantic or otherwise, for a person, an activity, whatever … a life force second to none, always on hand in the Here-and-Now to cheer and sustain us through thick and thin.
Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, a time to remember our debt of gratitude to the members of the armed forces who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts; in our minds also, inevitably this year, those across the world who have died fighting a very different kind of war, a very different kind of enemy, the Covid-19 coronavirus.
Someone's death is invariably someone else's tragedy too; remembrance is one of the many faces of Grief, yes, ut also a celebration of those who, for many of us, remain a 'living' inspiration.
LIFE FORCE, SECOND TO NONE
World, all but on its knees,
sickness and death paying home visits
just about everywhere …
No change there but for its assuming
the mantle of a coronavirus
striking a greater fear in us for its ability
to catch us unawares
snatch us from family and friends, no time
even for precious goodbyes
Hospitals overrun with cases,
doctors and nurses working all hours
to save lives, risking theirs,
while reassuring anxious relatives
or having to break
the very news they have been dreading,
yet little time for such tears
as compounding fears confronting humanity
with its own vulnerability
Battles fought, survivors recalling
loved ones lost with such mixed feelings
as remembrance inspires
love alone able to temper both pain
and grief, lifting hearts
with happy memories, the likes of which may
well never come again
yet enough to sustain a sense of joie de vivre
that, if we let it, lasts forever
Find any human heart’s capacity for endurance
sustained by love’s Spirit of Remembrance
Copyright R. N Taber 2020
[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today.] RNT
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