As dawn reaches its early
fingers of tentative light past
the dark sentinels of night
chickadees make their morning
pilgrimage to our bird feeder,
and a downy woodpecker picks
mightily at the suet cluster
while juncos gather the fallen
seed and a cardinal patiently
awaits his turn at the communal
avian feed. Later, drowsy-headed
squirrels make their querulous
appearance in the cold dawn
hours bypassing the bird feeder
for their very own feeding
pavilion even as a nuthatch
hangs above and the feisty
red squirrel, fierce in its
minuscule authority, arrogates
to itself disciplinary action
over its timorous black and
grey cousins so much larger
yet so much more passively
submissive among the orderly
slate of welcome daily visitors.
An aura of expectation hangs
on the atmosphere, or perhaps
it's only us, yet it seems
as though late afternoon
appears anxious to meet its
appointment with evening
too soon transforming from
the white brilliance of a sun
dappled snowy forest to a
long-shadowed, furtive woodscape.
As the temperature drops
so too does the sun, hovering
on the horizon catching the
bare-limb canopy to set it afire
but briefly as dusk descends
and the moon assumes her
bright oval throne, and our
boots crunching on the ice
crystals overlaying snow, we
stride the forest pathways
toward home and warmth,
our little winter-coated dog
trotting companionably beside.
It is their natural environment
their habitat, into which we
intrude without so much as a
by-your-leave of arrogant
entitlement for we control
all we survey and they are
after all, only animals of the wild.
Our homes are built where once
they roamed unhampered by our
presence, setting boundaries
through which they may not
venture for if they do we
designate the nuisance and
threats whose presence must
be addressed by means foul.
Those creatures have no access
to means by which they may
solve the nuisance and danger
we represent through the
hazards we pose trespassing
on their territory, the homes
that nature has suited them for
and so the tensions of co-existence
favour the bipedal opposed-thumb
animals distressing all others.
Strolling along a woodland trail
of a winter day, encounters though
unexpected do occur and where
before you is a strange but somehow
familiar face, you struggle with
memory to place that nudge of
familiarity, finally conjuring up
the image of a small grey dog with
oddly spiked hair, narrow snout
horned ears and wild eyes, with the
gentle name of Rachel. And you ask
at greeting before moving on, though
somehow you know, as a slow smile
is followed by the affirmation that
the little dog who uncannily resembled
a werewolf but comported herself
like a romping, friendly puppy, so
menacingly fierce in appearance that
people shrank back in fearful dismay
at her presence though loved by those
who knew her and her sweet temperament
died four years ago, leaving a deeply sad
vacancy that time has not yet healed.
Ah, how one pines for days
gone past, when a pioneer spirit
motivated our sturdy predecessors
to embark on long sea voyages to
newly discovered lands, in escape
from the suffocating poverty and
class struggles of the old land so
grimly abandoned, high expectations
of diligent hard work in land clearing
a beacon of future prosperity. Free
free at last in a new country beckoning
with its siren song of forests and lakes,
arable land and plentiful game -
and yes, as neighbours, indigenous
people who intimately knew the
land, knew winter cold and survival
techniques. Knew to follow the
wild herds in seasonal migration.
Knew the quality of botanical specimens
as medications, knew constant conflict
with competing tribes, knew they
would have to share access to fishing
and hunting, growing of crops, and
of course, exposure to dire seasonal
elements of climate, disease and
privation; above all, competition
for scarce resource entitlements. All,
all this and more in the glorious past.
Humankind has forged great strides
from our primitive distant past
to master the inventive intricacies
of science and modern technology
the forward momentum staggering
in its speed of development and
breadth of utility. Then, and now and
again a reminder that our triumphs
pale in comparison to our primitive
emotions stalling at the tribal
sectarian, chauvinistic primal state
where blood and belonging,
territorial gain, cupidity and deep
sanctimony reign supreme, compelling
those of faint conscience and urges
toward psychopathy to roil the
world in a never-ending riot of
recrimination, meting out their vision
of vengeance with the blood-drenched
pitiless righteousness of godliness.
If the divine spirit of creation
does critically observe the
creatures inhabiting the zoo called
Earth, how then does that creator
weigh and balance responsibility
resulting from the inspiration to
imbue its creatures with passion?
The fraught, inexplicable transition
from polarizing extremes like
love and hatred whereby the most
cerebrally gifted of creation's
living experiments adapt life
to the non-existence of death
a finality expunging life, as
example. Had the creator imagined
that within its divine self only
would the ultimate authority
of life and death reside? But
then, the creator designed its
creatures to procreate, endowing
them with the capacity to bring
forth new life, and in so doing
enabling those blighted creatures
also to destroy lives the benighted
considered unworthy as though
it was they dabbling in the arcane
laboratory of existence, shuffling
stardust, carbon and atoms
about at whimsical dalliance.
