Anthem Played on a Grass Harp

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

Some years ago, the children of friends of mine married without the blessing of their parents because both sets of parents disapproved of the match because is a lot older than her. Neither could accept their grown-up children’s choice of life partner. As it is, they have missed out on all the pleasures of being grandparents and seeing their grandchildren grow up.

Among all prejudices, ageism is often seen as the ‘poor relation’ but it can devastate lives as much and as needlessly as any other form of prejudice, whether it be based on the colour of a person’s skin, the nature of their sexuality or... whatever.

The couple in question had celebrated their silver wedding anniversary and were very happy until the younger partner died in a car accident. Only then did the families rally round and try to make peace “for the sake of the grandchildren...” Better late than never, I suppose, but so much time wasted, so many golden opportunities missed.

Prejudice in any shape or form doesn’t only eat away at a person’s mind-body-spirit, however much he or she may resist and rise above it, but can destroy families, even communities that are the chief losers in a human equation that will never quite add up until certain people see sense and recognise that all good people have a right to live their lives as they see fit, whether or not it quite adds up to what others might prefer.

I have seen prejudice drive people to crime, even suicide; such a waste of human potential. Whatever happened to respecting and making the best of our loved one’s choices for the good of everyone concerned? Driving home a point from a which misplaced pride refuses to let us budge can so easily make losers of us all.

ANTHEM PLAYED ON A GRASS HARP

Watery sun dripping through trees,
leaves sparkling like jewels in a crown
where we’d wander, my love and I,
ears pricking up at a chick’s first cry,
looking out for others flapping their way
on first flights through dawn rainbows
till gliding with ease as nature meant
for us all, although less so among humans,
a species well known for thinking they
know better than Earth Mother, wishing
them ill (and Hell) who resist straitjackets
and persist in walking tall

On a magic carpet of many colours,
among daisies passing for fairies
in a palace of dreams, we’d go free,
where all prejudices and bigotry
mean less than a fair breeze in the face,
Earth Mother’s caress in the hair,
reminding us how we are, one and all,
as nature intended, no one creature
any more or less precious than another,
each, in their own way, a ‘live’
testament to mind-body-spirit and a history
lending meaning to eternity

We arrived where the carpet
tuned into stone, where no sun shining,
only Shadows, a gathering of forces
preparing to take humanity on and win
any fight it may choose to pick,
no matter rights and wrongs (or alternative
points of view); for them, a certainty
that the world has no place for men, women
and young people whose sexuality
offends a majority choosing to make stand
on a Ship of Fools in a gale force wind, set on
making sense of humankind

Oh, but spring in our hair like jewels in a crown
Love takes for its own!

Copyright R.N. Taber 2010; rev.2021

Note: This poem appears on both poetry blogs today and has recently been significantly revised since first appearing in my collection On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book, 2010.]