Mother, Mine (Alice Maud Taber 1916-1976)

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

Hello again, folks, from London UK

Many thanks to the gay reader who says he has been exploring and very much enjoying the blo archives. 

Now, I hope you all managed to enjoy the Christmas spirit in spite of the pandemic and its new Omicron variant raging all around us.

For many families who have lost a loved one to Covid-19 or for any other reason, Christmas, like birthdays and other family gatherings make us all the more aware that someone is missing; it can be a painful experience, but as time goes by, we learn to live with happy memories of that person, always with us in spirit if small compensation for their absence.

For example, I still miss my mother who died in 1976, but her indomitable spirit remains a part of me and has helped me through many a personal crisis. The poem below is the Dedication poem that precedes my collection, A Feeling for the Quickness of Time; it has been significantly revised since publication in 2005.

As regular readers will know, many of the poems in my collections have been revised in the course of appearing on my blogs and I am hoping to publish revised editions before the Grim Reaper comes calling; if not, a close friend has said he will see to, it if we can find a publisher. All my collections include a gay section and no UK publishers have showed any interest, so I self-published limited editions under my own imprint; many copies went to public libraries where I am pleased to say they issued well. As a poet, I am no household word nor ever likely to be, but this general poetry blog has passed 202,012 views and the gay-interest poetry blog has had nearly 170,000 views, so many thanks again, dear readers, for being regular visitors.

Sadly, we LGBT folks - from all walks of life - continue to be much maligned worldwide, but there is less hatred and prejudice than when I was growing up, except within certain religious groups who fail to see that sexuality is not a lifestyle choice, but simply who we are in mind-body-spirit. Their leaders speak of a God of Love and preach Goodwill to All...so, to exempt LGBT folks has always struck me as the height of hypocrisy. (Why can't we all simply agree to differ and respect each other for that, regardless?)As a gay pantheist, I refuse to believe that any God would deny me a sense of His ethereal presence any more than Earth Mother would deny me a sense of Hers; rightly or wrongly, I don’t believe any religious agenda has the right to exclude anyone on the grounds of sexuality alone. (Yes, I know I have said this many times, but, as my dear mother would often say, if something is worth saying, it is always worth repeating.)

We all owe much of what and who we are to one or both our parents or to whoever took responsibility for raising us. I count myself very fortunate, indeed, to have the likes of my late mother as a positive role model.  Although my father and I did not get along, I owe him, too, a debt of gratitude for providing a home for the family. Gratitude, though, is not the same as love.; if he loved me in his own way, he certainly never showed it, and no child can expected to be a mind-reader. As far as I am (still) concerned, he was a psychological bully towards me and , for this reason, could not bring myself to attend his funeral in the early 1980's..

I am working on a poem for New Year's Day, so hope you will join me again then. Meanwhile...

MOTHER MINE (ALICE MAUD TABER, 1916-1976)

Mother, you were always there for me,
always believing in me more than I believed
in myself, knowing me
better than I knew myself, always loving me
more than I loved myself,
although I could not give all you all you' had hoped
for me, live and love how you wanted for me
subscribe to your dream, sadly only ever a fantasy
of family unity...

We did our best by each other, endeavouring
to support one another through life’s cruel maze
of emotional twists, turns and dead-ends;
me, unable to grasp for years
how conflicting family loyalties were daily
tearing at your heart, divided so
by the very loved-ones to whom you gave your all,
never quite finding peace of mind for our making you
Love’s own dear thrall

Yet, years on since a cruel tumour took its toll,
you continue to comfort my very soul, feed into it
all that good about mind-body-spirit,
lamenting its mistakes while making sure it follows
a learning curve, finds inspiration
in the Poetry of Love, resists
rather than too easily caves in to darker life forces
likely to confound and confuse us until we lose any sight
of potential consequences

Mother dear, you will always be the first to whom
I turn, to help and guide me along kinder paths than some
I’ve inadvertently taken, for turning
deaf ears and blind eyes to that still, small voice within
that would urge me not err or sin
on the side of an inflated ego that cannot see woods
for trees nor will admit
any flaws in a mind-body-spirit, much to live for and learn
about what makes the world turn

A part of me now, as always, oh, wise and wonderful mother,
no distant memory, but a part of me forever 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2005; rev. 2021

[Note: A This poem also appears on my general poetry blog today; an earlier version first appears as a Dedication in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

 

 

 

  

Making Out, Fitting In

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

As a child, my mother would often read or tell me stories. Consequently, I became an avid reader. I loved fairy stories, myths and legends. I used to have a collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen and many surface in my head even to this day. (I am 71 now!). I could not appreciate the value of those tales at the time, of course, but as I grew older I began to realise how many home in so sensitively on aspects of human nature, and with disconcerting accuracy.

As a teenager, I was past reading fairy stories, but several made a valuable contribution towards shaping those troubled years, I realised I  am gay, but felt obliged to keep this observation to myself. Being gay, I had been told, was something dirty, ugly. I often felt dirty and ugly although that did not stop me seeking out sex with other boys and men whenever the opportunity arose. Andersen’s tale of The Ugly Duckling was an inspiration then and, to a lesser extent, remains so to this day. It took some time, though, before I saw that what looks ugly from one perspective can appear beautiful in another.

So where does Red Riding Hood fit into my life? Well, for one thing, I learned that appearances are often deceptive and we need to guard against wolves with human faces…

Saturated with perceptions of human nature though these tales were, some had happy endings, in the hopeful search of which I have spent the greater part of my life. I experienced some for only a short time, others for longer, but the quintessential Happy Ever After remained beyond my reach. Even so, any share of happiness is better than none and never to be taken lightly or resented for never quite living up to expectations. Happiness, like love, comes in all shapes and sizes whether it relates to a person, place, whatever; if it remains in the memory and inspires us to adopt a positive rather than negative perspective on life, even on its downside, it remains a treasure without comparison. [Why do so many people insist on making comparisons when they are invariably irrelevant; we are all different, with different aspirations and views on life; different, too, in what (and who) makes us feel happy, sad,  inspired …whatever.

As I have said many times on the blogs, our differences don’t make us different, just human. Many if not most of us learn soon enough that life is no fairy tale, but I learned more about human nature from them as a child to help me find my way through its maze. Oh, yes, I have had my share of bad times as well as good, made mistakes (and plenty of them) but - not unlike the ugly duckling - I came out to the heterosexual world with pride and took my place among swans…[I was in my 30's and it had taken a severe nervous breakdown to make me see that being gay is - to borrow the title of one of my poems - worth every heartbeat.)

MAKING OUT, FITTING

The child I was…

would regularly go for a swim

with the Ugly Duckling

or go rushing off into dark woods

to warn  Red Riding Hood

about a wolf on the prowl likely

to devour her

The youth I was …

would regularly wish himself

a very different person

to the one haunting every thought

and move, each hour   

of each day on the prowl likely

to devour me

As a young man…

I would eagerly make friends

with gay characters

in this book or that movie, share

their roller coaster lives,

suffer a thousand cuts from wolves

with human faces

Growing older…

I gave shadow selves the heave-ho

left make-believe behind,

began to enjoy being who I am

without a thought

for that sad other ‘me’ living in fear

of being discovered

Growing old…

just as I take others as I find them

so I expect them to pay me

the same courtesy without rushing

to any judgement

coloured by stereotypes, tailored

to fit small minds

Grown old…

I still swim with the Ugly Duckling

whenever the whim takes me

and regret I was always too late

to warn Red Riding Hood,

but take in my stride that it is as it is,

or so the story goes...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017