Engaging with Conjecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I recently met up with a close friend for lunch in a church garden; it was a lovely, sunny afternoon and we were joined by assorted avian friends (mostly pigeons) hoping for such crumbs as we duly obliged. 

While chatting away, we’d sometimes address the birds directly; some would even seem to understand, if only in our imagination. Maybe they did understand, if not the words we spoke, the tone in which we spoken them? Who really knows what goes on in the head of any live creature, including human beings? It can only be pure conjecture, surely? 

I put this to a psychiatrist once. To my surprise, he agreed, adding that it was not his job to know what goes on in patient’s heads, but to help them to know and thereby help themselves. “I’m trained to read signs, not to be a mind-reader,” he pointed out, “Before anyone can begin to deal with problems affecting their behaviour, they have to get to the root cause, rather like having to lift an invisible curtain they don’t even realise is there.  It’s my job to point patients towards it and help them find the wherewithal to lift the damn thing. Even then, it’s only a first step...” 

A naturalist acquaintance once commented along similar lines about conjecture. We were observing a tortoise in his garden. “How does it decide which way to go?” I wanted to know. 

“Natural instinct,” he said with quiet conviction. 

“So how does that work?” I persisted. 

“No one really knows for sure,” he chuckled, “... but we can learn a lot by observation of live creatures and their remains. Even so, all species are different and within any species there will always be individual differences. At the end of the day, even what a specialist learns is only conjecture, but as close to knowing as anyone can get.”  

It was s too complex a conversation for me, though, and I changed the subject... 

ENGAGING WITH CONJECTURE 

In a church garden,
two gay men engaging with nature
and human nature  
in such ways as its hosts would
deny us for our being
beyond both their ken or remit,
according to such dogma
as they would share as a ‘God-given’
insight to Heaven 

Beneath leafy art forms
portraying dream-like cameos
of cloud shapes
and sun nymphs peering down
with watery eyes,
we ate our lunches, two old friends,
tossing breadcrumbs
now and then to birdlife come to share
precious moments there 

Pigeons, various markings
and colouring, engaging with us;
avian and human,
birds of a feather come together,
truce understood,
a spirit of such caring and sharing
as even divided species agree
on nurturing, if the going’s looking good
for credit and reward 

Nearby, a crow has business
of its own with discarded food waste
in open litter bins,
deftly removing sandwich wrappings
and other crumb-potential,
scattering them across public gardens
for passers-by to deplore
such ‘litter-louts’ as never spare a thought
for the environment 

Observing, though, how much
nature and human nature have in common,
for worse as well as better,
who’s to judge any species of creature
great or small for being
as they are, or any within the human race
made to feel outsiders
by any form socio-cultural-religious dogma
now and forever? 

Such are ways to which life forms
are born, better (surely) to trust than see them
forsworn under duress,
reason the need any heart may protest
at being put to a test
it doesn’t even recognise as fit for purpose,
any more than do two gay men
in a church garden, engaging with local nature
and human conjecture? 

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

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

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