Love's Take On Multiculturalism

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

I received the oddest email yesterday. A reader had some kind words for my poems but asks, ‘What is the point unless you can be counted among the great poets?’

This reader has answered his or her own question.  There is every point in writing poems if even just one person enjoys reading them.

So I am not a ‘great’ poet.  Do I care?  It is more than enough for me that both poetry blogs are read dail worldwide.

Too many cultures persist with a taboo on mixed-culture relationships. This is especially hard on those people, especially young people, living in a modern multicultural society.  Love has no time for such taboos and only asks that we respect its global identity.

It is no betrayal of culture, family or whatever to fall in love. Love brings shame on no one, and I include gay relationships. Those who see it as some kind of shameful betrayal are not only out of step with love, but out of step with their own culture for interpreting it by book rather than by heart; parents and other family members need to remind themselves that where any cultural responsibilities appear to override their love for children and siblings, the potential for shame lies not within that culture but within themselves. 

It is down and up to younger generations to break down old taboos once and for all, and as I look around me I can definitely see light at the end of that particular tunnel, but it is a long tunnel and long way to go yet before everyone gets to enjoy the sunshine; nor is there any need for compromise, just a common understanding of what drives the human spirit.

As I have said before and almost certainly will again, our differences do not make us different, only human, and we are all part of that global consciousness that comprises a common humanity; we need to respect each other's differences, not malign them.

LOVE’S TAKE ON MULTICULTURALISM 

As I put my lips to yours
they part to let my flame enter you,
its heat moulding us
into a live love-sculpture portraying
the true meaning of life

As the flame goes to work
on firing a peace offering to all those
who reject our love,
the raw scars of suffering peel away
like layers of an onion

As we dive and swim freely
where waters of the womb have risen
to offer us sanctuary
from wildfires threatening extinction,
we head for infinity

We reach a sandy shore,
our healing selves embraced by palms
whose leaves caress
where cruel hands would not long since 
have denied us a hearth

Oh, heaven, this splendid place;
if a dream, as real and far more likely 
to inspire angel choirs
than conflict among opposite numbers
in temporal divisions

Sadly, we must rise and leave
to make our way in this 'modern' world,
still a slave to its past
for all its fine rhetoric about fair play
in a free society

Yet, we have found a place
where no socio-cultural-religious spite
can keep us apart
though it snatch us up and spit us out
for breaking its rules

Find us among arts and streets,
recreating love’s custom-made models,
nor a finer take on life
than sex, sexuality, ethnicity or creed
reworking its humanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Hindsight

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

Long before I realised I am gay, I was very self-conscious of my failings on both home and school fronts. I wore horrible glasses for years, had a bad lisp that was not all but obliterated with speech therapy in my 20's and a hearing problem neither I nor anyone else understood until I was referred to a specialist, also in my 20's. Other kids would often make fun of me although I pretended to take it in my stride and with good humour. Once, it was all too much for me and a teacher found me sobbing in the cloakroom. 'I wish I wasn't so different from all the other kids,' I confided. 'Being different makes you vulnerable,' she said, 'Start believing in yourself, Roger. You'll see, others will soon catch on and start respecting you for it.' Sound advice, from the only female teacher in the whole school.

Here’s another poem from the archives, rediscovered in an old exercise book last year and slightly revised (where I couldn’t read my handwriting!) and gave it a title. It was written in 1982 as I was beginning to emerge from the other end of a severe nervous breakdown and probing my past for ways of exorcising certain ghosts that continued to haunt me.

I should add that my ghosts were (and still are) a mixed bag of downright vindictive, placidly benign, incredibly friendly and spiritually inspiring. Consequently, a crude but demonstrably effective self-assessment took place over many weeks as I undertook to sort the good from the bad.

Even in those days, I found no peace of mind in religion so turned to nature instead. I refer to God in a very loose sense, a synonym for rather than a source of spirituality. Some people would call me an agnostic or atheist, even a pagan, while I prefer to think of myself as a pantheist.

HINDSIGHT

I lay under a sycamore tree
sunshine cascading down on me
like a slide we used to play on
when we were just children;
it was by the sycamore tree,
sunshine cascading down on me,
you slid into my embrace,
childhood gone, youth in its place

I lay under the sycamore tree,
sunshine cascading down on me,
watching an angel take a turn
on the slide we’d made our own;
the angel whispered in my ear
home truths I didn’t want to hear,
told me time would pass me by
once life had me hooked on a lie

I lay under the sycamore tree,
sunshine cascading down on me,
conscience in as slippery a skin
as the slide we had finally chosen,
one long, lovely, secret summer
bringing us ever closer to each other,
into as sweet an intimacy sliding
as an angel sending God’s blessing

We took a decision that day
to tell the world we’re proud and gay,
vowed to run its gamut
(no matter who or where or what)
of societies not on our side,
where prejudice and history preside,
humanity in as slippery a skin
as the slide we’d finally forsaken

Yet, you reneged on that vow;
it was years on before I discovered how
to look society in the face
(fellow members of the human race)
while you married, had children,
chose a far more slippery slide to play on
than you’d shared with me
long ago under the sycamore tree

Ugly road signs now, the old tree cut down
where a roundabout leads in or out of town

Copyright R. N. Taber, 1982; 2010 (Rev. title 2017)