The White Coat

 

For those with chronic illness impelled to attend 

a place of healing and comfort, hospitals resemble

institutions of religious faith where parishioners 

gather seeking direction and assurance from a higher

order whose earthly representative is regarded 

as an emissary from god. No less is the medical

practitioner considered a demi-god healing the ill

thrusting the spectre of the Grim Reaper away from

contention. And so doctors have become priests

of health, a position to which they accustom themselves

in entitlements of venerated power over death

taking their very special place in public trust. Until

nature presumed to retrieve for herself the overlooked 

reality as arbiter of existence, creator of all that is

in whom alone divine authority rests, thrusting the

world of man into a mad dilemma of its own 

devising where divine intermediaries, of faith and 

medicine find themselves helpless and what's more 

become themselves vulnerable targets reducing their

status to mere expendable human beings. There the 

story does not end for delving deep into their psyches 

and professions, suppressing fear and their own

humanity they rise to the occasion embracing their

colleagues while struggling desperately  to own 

the reputation they burnished to rescue humanity.

 

The Messenger

 

This is the nature we adore. That

gentler, nurturing, creative aspect

and not the capricious, indifferent

creator who devised an original

blueprint for existence then left her

creations to fend for themselves

against the predatory pathogens she

also created as part of her ineffable

kingdom of multitudinous lifeforms

many she abandons to a brief fate

others she idly observes insisting on 

surviving using the very tools she

invested in them, varying from one 

creature to another, but all, each and 

every one interrelated and mutually

benefiting despite sacrifices beyond

their capacity to escape. Gentle nature 

graciously offers symbols of rebirth 

and hope, in the first green spears of plants 

probing their presence out of the thawed 

soil in winter's hoary wake and the 

ethereal trilling of a cardinal exuberantly 

informing the world that yes, winter 

has finally departed and spring has arrived.

 

 

Sleep Walking

 

This stiff-upper-lip voice

floating at me

 

through my radio

 

this upper-class British voice

 

that I alternately envy and deride

 

describing new research

 

into the incidence of sleep-walking

 

and one of the symptoms

 

one of the ways you can tell

 

is by the victim's (?) GLAZED EYES

 

Is that how?

 

Could be my life is one

 

whole sleep-walking experience.

 

And he goes on to say

 

it's a fallacy, they don't die of shock

 

if precipitately

 

brought out of their sleep-walking

 

and goes on to give an example

 

of some woman who had an 'unfortunate'

 

tendency to sleep-walk

 

in the wee hours of the morning

 

- naked - and that's

 

how her husband invariably discovered her

 

walking the streets, naked.

 

"It distressed her husband enormously"

 

the voice said. Well, yes it would.

 

But women are like that

 

always dreaming of

 

walking the streets

 

though few of us do it

 

naked

 

and fewer yet

 

die of mortification when

 

precipitately brought to reality.

 

 

Biodegradation

 

We are a conflicted species in many

ways, an inheritance bequeathed to all

living things endowed with the capacity

to adapt so they may above all things

survive in an atmosphere that offers

that capacity to those with few scruples

over gathering sustenance depriving

other life forms in the process. We can

always point to nature as responsible for

our belligerence across borders clinging

to tribe and clan, perceiving all others

as competitors, opponents, enemies

whose plans of territorial aggression

must be countered, lest we suffer for we

are the righteous and all others are the

blights upon humanity. By nature we are

also gregarious finding comfort and no

little security in the company of others

like ourselves -- none others need apply.

Now, alarmingly suddenly a new enemy

has surfaced whose conquest of humanity

makes no distinctions between borders

and we quail before its onslaught, felling

us one by one in horrific numbers. Now

we protect ourselves by disowning the

company of others, cloistering ourselves

in our little caves, quaking with fear.

 

 

Lost and Found

 

 

Look! There they are! There, and there

and there. Be still, my heart... Ah, yes

the usual suspects. Furtive? No, triumphant!

It's nature's celebrated conspiracy of spring

renewal, and all her accomplices have

been alerted, from the sun to the spinning

Earth, the wind and the rain. A splendid

group effort of absolutely divine direction.

Winter has taken of late to creeping away

while obstinately refusing to pick up speed

but the inevitable is the inevitable and even

that cranky misery knows its time is up.

Snow and ice both receding under the sun's

imperious glare, the soothing rain and rising

temperatures. Warming the soil, thawing

the latent vegetation slowly awakening

beginning their green-spear thrusts toward

a warming atmosphere prepared to receive

them as nature nurtures the release clockwork

of another spring bringing food and flowers

alive once again -- joy to gardeners' hearts.

 

 

It's Not Necessarily So

 

It's Not Necessarily So

But rather of necessity. We are equipped

with certain emotions for a reason not

merely because they make us human

but because they protect our humanness.

So that famous old adage so smugly

trotted out at times of viral public concern

that There Is Nothing To Fear But Fear

Itself is just that; smug and trite when

indeed there are times when the very fact is

fear prepares us for the need to guard

ourselves from what may conceivably be

certain doom. Nature gifted us with a

sense of caution that fear electrifies

warning us of impending danger. As we

evolved so did the world we live in; as

threats from predators in the wild alarmed

and taught us vigilance and discretion in

our movements to the present when civil

life in our modern era is brought to a

screeching halt with the sudden presence

of a silent deadly biological threat unseen

but lurking as a sinister infection whose

purpose is invasion and replication, in the 

process far outdistancing any threat from 

marauding wildlife yet in fact an infectious 

agent of wildlife that humans hunt to consume.

The dread that now consumes us is fear.

 

 

The Message is the Medium

 

My friend tells me

it's been nice 

knowing me all these years.

With a pat on the arm

he says I've

been a good sport

and even

pleasant company.

That's how I know

he's just recalled

         the date

and like last year

and the one before

has forgotten

to get me an 

anniversary gift.

The surface child

acquisitive me

never fails to be 

disappointed; yet

      somehow their

belatedness and haste

doesn't make the words

tripping hopefully

from his familiar mouth

sound any less sincere.

He sincerely hopes

I won't strike a

        tragic pose of

           benign neglect

weep tears of self-pity

like last year.

Strange how some things

never change.         Odd

how we never 

seem to learn.        Nice

that life goes on

any old how.