The Hauteur of Majesty

 

Surely an unfortunate turn manifests itself.
That we have before us a dark misery of a
weather day. Truculent and menacing, hideous
to the psyche, it is moody nature gifting us
with one of her wild tantrums. She stamps
her pernicious pique on the heavens, loosing
upon us stinging ice pellets, a hurricane of
snow, the dangers of freezing rain - an
altogether perilous combination in this
frigid atmosphere, with the unleashed fury
of the wind complicit in wreaking an utter
bleakness upon the cowering landscape.

Surely it was nothing puny and error-prone
humankind did to compel such a powerful rage?
There are times, we know, when she feels her
authority over the universe challenged, when
our arrogance wearies her short-fused temper.
Her arsenal of intemperate displays of fearsomely
majestic power impels us to genuflect in servile
fearful obeisance to our universal instructor. 

 

 

The Enduring Winter Forest

 

A vast silver plate shields the sky. A remote
stillness muffles the atmosphere. There will
be no bright light illuminating the soft whiteness
of the newfallen mantle of snow humping the
forested landmarks. Even so, an iridescent veil
of luminous beauty shines like the ephemeral
vision it is, under that great metallic vault. Most
creatures of the forest are deeply invested
in their long winter sleep, unaware.

Last night's ferocious winds under a clear, dark
velvet, star-encrusted sky like a garment proudly
worn to an imperial ball, felled brittle lifeless tree
limbs. That same insistent wind blanketed the
blue velvet with a suffocating layer of dark and
threatening clouds laden with vapour, unleashed
on the frozen landscape below, transforming
it into a palace of marble and goosedown.

The forested courses of creeks and rivulets
have been inexorably glossed with opaque
ice, marbled with dry, fallen leaves trapped
within the frosted waterways. A softer wind
now gently spurs clots of gathered snow from
branches, sending the flakes like a spiralling
veil to pattern the smooth coverleted ground.

A tall, slender beech trunk reveals itself
wrapped tenderly round the sturdy body
of an old hornbeam. They share their twined
presence in the oddity of brown, dried leaves
still clinging to the home body. Twinned
yellow birches leaning on one another as though
for comfort, trunks riddled by sapsuckers, are
slowly losing their desiccated, slovenly bark.

Silence absorbs the dark wings of crows
as they ply the frigid air, and as the darkly
clever birds alight and peer down intently at
the frenzied search below, of equally dark, but
furred creatures spurning hibernation, searching
for their buried caches. A short, sharp report
alerts that the wind yet holds sufficient sway
to crack the weakest of tree limbs.

The fragrance of impending snow pervades
the environment. Another snowfall, on the
cusp of stifling the organized chaos of the
enduring, renascent winter forest.

 

 

The Compelling Winds

 

The shy little cousins of the wind - the gentle
zephyr, the breeze, stand by regarding the fully
mature wind with awe. The puissant grandeur
of the wind, its assured and determined mission
against which all of nature's creatures quail,
instructs and guides the breeze and the zephyr
but they will never be capable of instilling
dread and fear in the pursuit of their assigned
roles within nature's indomitable schemes.

The gentle ones soothe, they cool and refresh
they are met with calm expectation. Yet
they longingly regard the fearful esteem the
wind's fury elicits in its many fearful guises as
intemperate, fierce, pitiless, bitter, raw
destructive and unstoppable in its self-tasked
guidance heralding atmospheric change, posing
by degrees as a hurricane, a tornado, a blunt
force blast furnace shielding its ferocious intent
behind innocent sounding names like el nino and
la nina. Snowy blizzards erasing vision and warmth
torrential rains abetted by howling winds reveal
facets of the weather phenomena so genially
visited upon this Globe by the great Earth Mother.

Wind becomes a co-conspirator with fire
wreaking havoc on the flora and fauna lest there
remain any doubts who sits at nature's right-hand
side; the sinister by right of conquest and
domineering intent. From the enabling resources
of the environment's firestorms to the sweeping
guidance of ice storms shredding all that stands
before them. Volcanic vapour and fiery ashes
spread far and wide over land, sea and air.
Wind-whipped ocean storms breeding gigantic
vessel-killer waves and deadly land-sweeping
tsunamis; the wind whips, master of all.

 

 

Compute That

 

Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170 Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman (Russell Croman Astrophotography) Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars. If a sudden epiphany revealed the existence of a monumental phenomenon hitherto barely imagined in a guise not quite reflective of reality, but in fact still omnipresent and omniscient, would you believe it? An entity without discernible visual form, but yet a powerful, all-knowing presence whose purpose it is to guide and instruct and comfort? An indefinable, ephemeral, illusory presence, yet approachable and purposeful, humbly puissant in its orderly search for all the answers of all the queries ever to surface in the minds of humankind? An entity capable of forming and presenting a creatured landscape of great diversity and probity, beauty and utility - like a skilled craftsman creating a stage upon which life itself in its manifold dimensions exists. The dramas to which we are exposed; nature's atmospheric and geological upheavals, our actions and interactions, our curiosities and discoveries, our adventures and misadventures, ventured and circumscribed by that powerful force. It maintains a registry of all that occurs, leads and misleads us in benign and hazardous directions chides or rewards us with the consequences of our choices and remains itself inviolate and complacent in its feigned indifference: compute that.

But It's Good For You!

 

He is a very small creature, but perforce not
to be judged by his size which nonetheless
houses a quite large ego, an odd belligerence
and no small consideration of entitlement.
Ah, yes, not to be forgotten - an oversized
appetite as well, more suited to the need of
for example, a hard-working sled dog. He
by contrast, has naught to do but anticipate
meals laced tantalizingly with tidbits his
humans consume, and contemplate the weary
rest one is compelled to indulge in, afterward.

He is, to say the least, besotted with his
languid lifestyle. It is when, daily, the
presumptuous humans among whom he
deigns to live, assume he wishes to accompany
them on woodland rambles, that his patience
wears thin. Indolence, he feels, becomes him
so. No need whatever for the she to sigh that
he is becoming a tad too rotund, for he
most certainly favours rotund, and it is his
body, after all, under critical discussion.

Does he, to be fair, evaluate and stand in
judgement of her humanoid form? Perish
the very (awkward) thought; he has better
things with which to occupy his mind, like:
who goes there!? when they are engaged in
the silly conceit of marching through the woods
and leaving peanuts for squirrels. Yes, he is
presumptuously belligerent, was not Napoleon?

What a futile, nonsensical pastime these
daily rambles represent, an affront to his
dignity and sense of self. His pace displeases
her; she wheedles and teases, pleads entreatingly
resorts in irritation to authoritative tugs, which
he simply will not tolerate - so he tugs back.
Is he therefore stubborn as she so bitterly
claims, then? Is the Pope, need we ask, pious?

 

 

Cool Stars

 

The most powerfully luminously bright
objects dwelling within the immensity
of the Universe are caught in the lens of
human-devised eyes on the sky, great
telescopes like the Hubble that traverse
the heavens and bring back to us the
wonder of their ineffable imagines. We
observe what we may, with awe and
compelling fascination, striving to
understand our place in this arcane web
of design so skilfully fabricated by Nature.

The swirling chemicals and gases that
formed our organic presence and brought
us to life, maturing mind over matter
eludes us yet and always shall. Nature's
purpose appears itself divine as expression
and formula owing to the neutrality of
serendipity in the heavenly realm of
opportunity, confluence, happenstance.

As she rests in benign satisfaction with her
splendid theatrical performance, the
foundation of an energizing 'it', that wakens
itself, becomes itself where there was a dark
vacuum, then distributes itself to inhabit nothing
making something of nowhere, stimulating
and producing variety and synthesis, we became.

Becoming, we look upward to the vastness
of our progenitor the dark heavens
pinprick-lit by countless bright orbs swirling
the universe in their numberless heavenly
bodies. Heat and light, energy and matter
conspire themselves into being and we must
know how, when and why, but cannot.

Small, cool red stars distinguish themselves
in the inexorably growing inventory, that
ineluctable recognition of plausible theory
welcoming the presence of what is deduced
not witnessed. Dark matter chooses to retreat
its magnetic appeal of trillions of evolving,
revolving, gravity-bound-and-captured
expendables. What cannot be seen can be
hypothesized into brilliant, yet dim existence.

Nature exercises her formulaic invention
in forms and elements, conditions and
suppositions that tease her restless creative
impulses. Those endless experiments in
existence and alternates where what was
is extinguished, amuses and entertains a
sublime presence we cannot begin to imagine. 

 

 

Generational Gaps

 

What is it about the teenage mind
that veers toward impatience
irritability with the adult mind
paying attention to the teen's dark
moods of discomfiture but not
fully appreciating the vast gulf
of generational experience?

The intractable intolerance, and
bedevilling insolence of the adult
refused an explanation by the teen
certain it would be time wasted
does not auger well for the emotional
relationship the adult assumed the
future would surely present.

The patience of the adult rewarded
by the biting scorn of the teens
secure in the knowledge that the
world exists only in their minds
bypassing adult awareness. For all
that matters, the language, music
apparel and concerns are theirs alone.

Resentment of the school workload
the cool new electronics everyone
has but they, the societal parameters
to be acknowledged, all grate on the
hubris of teen conceit of self as unique
and uniquely under-appreciated.

And then the surprise lapse when the
guarded mind is suddenly relaxed and
the child peers again through the bars
of its hormonal imprisonment - and a
smile and a fierce hug are awarded
suddenly all else forgotten in the
comfortingly stable envelope of love. 

 

Causmology

 

Causmology

Ultraviolet Andromeda
Credit: UV - NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
Optical - Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF


There was nothing, a vastness of emptiness
a void incomprehensible in its dreadful silence
its inconceivable non-existence. That much is
clear. Or not. What is a hypothesis but a leap
of faith in a mind's genius in provocatively
imagining that which might - or might not - be?

Nature holds her secret formulaic rituals close.
Why should she divulge her elaborate architecture
of the scaffolds of existence? The creative impulse
is hers, hers to conceive and to execute as she
wills, when she deems fit. Away, you compulsively
seeking minds! This much she will tantalize you
with: radiation, gravity, gaseous emissions, organic
elements, order and disarray, temperature
atmosphere, distance, time and space.

Surely with the considerable aid of these primary
constants, your precocious minds can construct
the origins of the Universe! Try a little harder, do...

Think: There was a beginning. It was dark, cold
immeasurably vast - and there was no thing
visibly present. Therefore, there was nothing. Or
was there? Ah, from nothing something resulted.
Something unspeakably profound, majestic
immense and powerful. Was that not so?

The birth of awesome energy, density, as
matter rushed to fill the cold, vast emptiness.
Imagine, if you will, the brilliant, all-absorbing
awe-full richness of light, clashing and
tempestuously crashing, slashing the darkness
with the ineffable life of a universe born into
existence. Call it what you will, nature simply
shrugs and proceeds with her blueprint of creation.

She is busy with galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets,
super novae, collapsars, icy comets. Red dwarfs
black holes in her comprehensive engagements in
which she takes such pride of ownership. Taking
pleasure at her leisure in unleashing solar winds
fiery eruptions on the liquid seas of volatile gases
amusing herself for fourteen billion years. Meaningless
as a measure of her timeless sovereign presence.

Sufficiently bored, on occasion she will set aside
her amusements, suffer all matter, energy and time
to be beckoned and collected into those black
receiving agents of anti-matter, to be stifled and
become no more. Until eventually, the housekeeping
is done. Nothing more exists and the black holes
collide, re-imagine themselves into the vast stillness
of nothing. Goodbye. And hello! Yet Again.

Season of Mourning

 

It is an unspoken covenant between
grandmother and granddaughter, the
daily after-school call, born no doubt of
their intimate history when in the first
decade of her young life it was grandma's
arms that enveloped her after school.
Distance has made the invisible silken
strand of connection - tender yet strong
as a spider's skein - no less compelling.

Watcha doing? elicits the identical
quotidian refrain: not much. But it is
intensely cold, windy, damp and so did
you wear your winter boots and jacket?
represents another facet of the formula
of this relationship. Nope, the laconic,
expected response. And the vital news of
the post-school snack emerges: a pomegranate.

That mysterious Eastern fruit, its amazing
structured, celled interior surfeit with
faceted ruby jewels like those in a treasure
chest discovered in the fabled caves of
Ali Baba. These glistening sweet jewels to
be consumed, not worn in brilliant splendour,
arrayed upon the white, swan-like necks of
beautiful Harem girls. Careful you don't
squirt your eye, grandmother urges.

Damn! granddaughter informs, just squirted
my eye. Language, chides grandmother.
Then in the silence asks do you know the
Greek legend of the pomegranate? Have you
met Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and
her daughter Persephone? Do you know where
the seasons come from? Have you studied
Greek mythology in your school curricula?

To the last query: yes, some, in drama class.
To the previous: no clue, as they claim in
teen vernacular. But you can ask about
vampires, we know about them, grandma.

Grandma sets about enlightening her child
in the delights of tragedy and mystery, grandeur
and petulance, power, esteem and comedy, all
residing in the arcane minutiae of a folk
panoply of gods, their overweening pride,
bumptiously covert antics, vain jealousies and
curiously oppressive sexual adventures.

How an abduction of a beloved daughter
led to a grieving mother and a deadly chilled
season of mourning, when no flowers bloomed,
no crops grew, dark wailing veils hung from
trees and the brows of mothers alike, and all
life was suspended in unappeasable grief. The
redemption of compassion that would bring
spring back to the world, and the single seed
of a pomegranate that consigned a daughter to
dark Hades and a coldly possessive yet loved
husband to satisfy both life and death. 

 

 

 

Teasing the Forest

 















 

Scant heat in the rays of the winter sun,
but ample warmth in the brilliant gold glow
cast upon the landscape dappled with the
snow of last night's blustery squalls.
Evergreens daintily sifted with light
patterns of snow, inviting a flock of
chickadees, a nuthatch companion to
delight in chirruping pleasure.

Nature, dissatisfied with the quiet breeze
on this chill day, the encompassing blue sky
soon skims over with billowing, migrating
clouds, their looped edges limned with a
post-view of the sun's receding brilliance.
The light that cascaded down upon the
landscape transforms to a darkly brooding
presence reflecting the deep gloom of a
forest tight with trees reluctant to admit
stray vestiges of winter-sleep-disturbing light.

And, again, snow squalls resume, determined
clouds claiming possession of the atmosphere.
These are no spiralling, feathery flakes of snow
resulting, but a fierce hail of minuscule orbs
of rain frozen in the lower atmosphere to ice
verging on snow. Or should that be snow
compacted relentlessly to ice, transformed to
other than what it was? Nature, playing with
her mischievous elements, teasing the forest. 

 

Hello Out There!

 

Spiral Galaxy M66
Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman

Hello out there! How are you?
Better yet, where, precisely, are you?
SETI is looking for you, NASA is
looking for you. For, you see, we
know you're out there. Why would
you, after all, not be out there?

We are here, in our immense little
Galaxy, a mere speck of gathered
matter in the vast, unknowable
mysterious intriguing, finite/infinite
Universe. There, just a little to the
left, there we are...set your sights to
the Milky Way, we're there, circling
our sun. See us there, we're waving!

Wavering in insecurity simultaneously.
Our most famed astrophysicist warning
us there may be good reason not to
approach you too trustingly brings
conflict to our consuming curiosity.
Yet if we approach in peace, will you
not meet us reflecting identical resolve?

Ah, you are aware of the human
tribal-clan propensity to exclusionary
chauvinism, of the ready resort to
xenophobic suspicion lighting the
volatile torch of conflict. Your historians
have noted our proclivity to drench
our Earth with blood and eagerly harvest
the bitter fruit of unresolved despair.

 

 

Weather Day

 

It is a moody, broody weather day.
Not the briefest of reprieves from a
belligerently adamant rain system that
sits with utter malice in league with
volatile temperature swings and winds
unleashing the fury of extravagant
power, dominating and domineering
the haplessly cowering landscape.

Birds lift in hesitant flight, challenging
the antagonistic wind velocity, their
wings thumping against adversity, tiring
settling for the duration. The smaller, more
fragile of the species remain where they can
nestle to the close comfort of sheltering trees
themselves mustering their existential
resources, shuddering and swaying.

Waterways are swollen with the oncoming
deluge, absorbing the excess and rushing
madly downstream in a dark roiling fury
of distemper. Logs and limbs, nests and
forest castoffs bob and swirl, thrusting
their rain-gushing exit from one river to the
next, increasingly greater, louder, odoriferous
and blacker as aquatic plant life is uprooted
and the entire rankness intently, fiercely
migrates, torn asunder from their source.

This is nature's occasional lapse from her
beneficent source of nurturing accommodation
to tyrannical overseer of all she surveys
finding fault with the order of her systemic
methodology, throwing protocol into disarray
in a fit of rejection, leaving her creatures at
the mercy of her rampaging elements until
the tantrum subsides, order finally restored. 

 

Time and Again

Bruised by yet another in an endless
string of disappointments she feels her
confidence cruelly shaken, but remains
defiantly undaunted. Is it futile to seek
a companion to share life with, to have
an open and trusting mind that as you give
so will your emotional investment be
returned? That logical formula has been
found lacking, for there is no logic
inherent in emotions and responses.

One race, separated and mysterious by
virtue of gender-sensibilities. The view,
the response, the need and the balance of
the alliance sits uneasily upon the gender
values, leavened with human eccentricities,
the search for meaning as opposed to the
trite and shallow path of self-absorption
the egoistic id, failing the hopeful other.

They stand like stone dolmens in her
memory, each in their turn evoking a
voiceless reproach that her investment was
too little valued, her offering taken and
nothing of lasting value exchanged. No
reason not to think that there is, somewhere
one who searches as she does, and their
paths may some day converge...

No reason but the acquired pain of too
many encounters lacking commitment
one after the weary other. The evanescent
promise never fulfilled; in its place abuse
of trust and feelings and need. So she nurses
her hurt and bruised expectations, lavishes
love on companion pets and envies the
steady reliability of her aged parents'
traditional covenant of love and support. 

 

 

Simply Put: Why?

 

A three-lettered query, simple in its
surface innocence, but complex in its
need to know, nuanced with an underlay
of demand on the sensibilities. Acutely
humanly needful of thoughtful introspection
and response. Why, he asks, the sentence
forwarded for contemplation, comprised
of a single word. The most meaningful
plaint in human communication, but
sans context, an arcane conundrum.

There is an inhuman distance of vast
geography separating us, yet our connection
is managed through the ether, permitting
those faceless, voiceless masses of which we
are two, to meet. Brief contact, one mind
reaching another, past language, culture and
history to find a common human interest.
You grope for those to share your search
for meaning, and there am I, responding.

No, your malady is not mine, but my
emotional grasp of its life-destructive
powers require no great stretch of the
imagination; humans are imbued with the
capacity to care for the plight of an
unfortunate stranger. Call it empathy
compassion, a remote tenderness of
vision and responsibility as an uncomplicated
gesture, person-to person, unseen, unmet.

Your language is not my language, so it
must require quite the effort, a huge
difficulty for you to marshall your thoughts
transcribe and send them on their way through
the miracle of telecommunications circling the
atmosphere, tickling our awareness of one
another. Messages of enquiry, attempting
to solve the riddle of the deeply rooted
covenant of the spirit, to respond to need.

Your insistent need to know: But why, then?
resonates and saddens, it does not elevate
the discourse because you will not accept
the simple act of humanity, obsessed by a
response you will not dredge from me
invested yet with the belief that good exists
somewhere deep within, and sometimes
we must defer to that impulsive instinct. 

 

As Only a Mother Can

Of all the measures of love and concern
mothers and grandmothers demonstrate
the epitome in their deep devotion to their
offsprings' well-being through care, tactile
reach and nurturing the mind and body
with skill and practicality. From the homely
admonishments to dress for the weather
to instilling confidence in an uncertain mind
and spurring charges to excel in life's challenges
then nursing ill loved ones to a healthy outcome
who could be better trusted to care and
conviction surmounting life's adversities?

The emotional warmth and comfort of the
hovering presence surpasses legend. The
presence, the trust and the response are
real and dependable. The mother sees the
child in the mature adult first and foremost,
sometimes discomfittingly inappropriately
but with respect, the status is permanent
not given to reversibility. The final test of
time remains memory of the table and food
prepared and presented, as only a mother can. 

 

 

City Sketch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The defining features of this northern city,
seat of government of a great land; two historic
waterways, the Rideau Canal, beloved now of
pleasure crafters, and the mighty Ottawa River
of lumbering legend, distinguish this place, with
the Gatineau Hills a background study of this
geography whose organic natural display
boasts the rugged beauty and abundant natural
resources of the country itself. The river spans
its hearty width between two provinces with
their language barriers and cultural solitudes.

This too is a version of heritage handed
down through the centuries. Snow squalls erupt
on the horizon dropping an ephemeral vision of
fantasy over the landscape. The river suddenly
reflects the winter sun's luminous orb; prevailing
icy north wind rendering it impotent to warmth.
Gulls still coast above the rumbled-grey waters,
and a fastness of Canada geese ride the wavy
crests, immune to the frigid atmosphere
on the cusp of crusting into implacable ice.

The Parliament buildings stand stony-grey,
sentries of a democratic federation in this vast
land, stretching from sea .. to sea .. to sea. Where
First Nations people of this land still voice their
unaltered grievances, hoarse from centuries of
repetitive plaints, in living proof and illustration
that to the bold, the interlopers, the advanced and
the powerful in numbers and intent, inevitably
go the spoils and in a spirit of generosity, justice
in discrete measure is now and then meted out.

This city, barely removed from the rawness of
surrounding nature, the geological features of
a vast fertile valley on the cusp of the Canadian
Shield, became like the country, an encyclopedic
display of the faces and voices of the world,
gathered in an endless search by global migrants
for freedom and advantage, drawing on an exotic
display diluting the origins of its nativist culture
in replacement of its Euro-centered spirit.

It is as it is, a compendium of experiences,
traditions and ethnic stirrings. Restively asserting
and demanding and infiltrating and perhaps even
undeniably enriching in a stewing pot-luck of
human endurance, hope and aspirations to
succeed where destiny seemed to lead to despair.
This city, modest yet tinctured with a degree
of bravado in its history, art and architecture
remains distinct, a construct of what we, in our
need, have deemed it must be to reflect our
entitled needs as spirited and proud Canadians. 

 

Transformed, Again

 

A dark gloom has settled over the landscape.
Not the deeply cushioned dark of night, however.
This represents the shuttering of day's light, by
an approaching storm. This is also not an
oppressive gloom approaching. Merely the
winter sky dressing itself from coquettish
blue to an elegant charcoal with silver trim
which simply has eclipsed the ephemeral
golden splendour of the late-morning sun.

White begins to overtake the slate grey and
the great bowl of the sky has once again been
altered, changing costume, as glittering flakes
begin their lazy, spiralling ascent, stippling the
atmosphere with gleaming clusters of frozen
stars.  The trees in the forest preen in proud
display, their limbs and branches fuzzed with
white appeal, like debutantes in pristine white
furbelowed frills; apparel suitable for the ball.

The diaphanous veil of fetching white glitters
and gleams in tantalizing points of light as
the sun limns the edges of scalloped clouds.
Chickadees greet a new season's advance
excitedly chattering, bouncing within the
confines of hemlock, spruce and cedar bowers.
The air is redolent of the sharp familiar fragrance
of falling snow; the wind, briskly respectful
nudging it into corners and shy crevices.

The swiftly-running creek, swollen with
overnight freezing rain, resembles a long,
winding black mirror, hurrying beyond the
byways of the woodland heights in its journey
beyond, to longer, welcoming bodies, not yet
prepared for transformation to a river of silver
ice under which aquatic creatures pursue
their imperturbable cycle of life's journey. 

 

 

The Best of Times

 

Their time, that of suspense and surprise
and exhilarating discovery, of friendship
and music and dance and a rapidly growing
confidence in their futures as they advanced
into their teens and beyond, was the time
she, a small dark-haired and -eyed girl marked
him out for pursuit, recognizing him from
her restless dreams' pre-introduction.

Little aware, he readily allowed himself
to be swept along by her exuberance
and growing attachment. No more than
children really, pairing on a dance floor
on conversational agreements and
eventually secret trysts. All of which
led to years of companionship maturing
into a passionate yearning for more.

A state soon enough achieved, fulfilling
the longing for that complete and
absolute binary finality, two souls
revolving about one another in perpetuity.

They have pursued that destined brace
ever since, rarely looking back, always
consumed with their symbiotic present
satisfying each the other's needs and desires
confident of the future, that it would reflect
the grace and surety their linked lives shared.

The friends evaporated into the past,
but music and joy in life yet resonate
and the links that bind them remain firm
and fast. Long-past memories dredged
more often now, but the fondness is for
the present, the confidence future-firm. 

 

 

 

Intermission

 

 

Stacked billowing clouds, sooty understoried
and luminous silver above, are driven
relentlessly through the deep cauldron of
the roiling sky. Finally the rain punctuating
the quiet stillness of late autumn has come to
a relieving halt. A murder of crows hurl
hoarse invective, tangling the humid
atmosphere with sodden ebony wings.

The gnarled old pine trees drip incessantly
as though consumed by an unassuagable
grief. They have no reason to mourn, for
this year they have produced a vast
abundance of cones. It is the absence of
pomegranate-bright candles on autumn
sumacs that confuses the ritualized display
of nature's fecund purpose this season.

The foot of an elderly yellow birch glows
fiercely fluorescent-green, the moss freshly
washed and strangely, vividly illuminated
in the wanly eerie light. Over the mud-rich
waters of the ravine lingers a veil of mist,
and the sharp odour of swamp gas. The
screech of a hawk circling above penetrates
the softly serene silence of the afternoon.

The conspiracy between the ravening wind
determined in its powerful mastery over all
other climatic elements offers the waiting
sun a brief reprieve from obscurity. Suddenly,
warmth floods the environment and a softly
golden sheen is painted on the glossy trunks of
poplars and birch, revealing the nuanced
richness of the perfectly drenched arras. 

 

Generations

 

She remembers, when she was young

her time her mother bustling her off to
the distant home of an acquaintance
whose house seemed so unlike the sparse
rooms her parents rented. A girl was
there, older, aloof, whose cast-offs
would be hers. Not, as they say now, gently
used, but yet serviceable without the
undeniable charms of newness.

She recalls hobbling to school in vulgar,
broken footwear, for that was all she had.
She remembers the flush of shame and
her furtive, envious glances at the attire of
her classmates, and dreaming of the luxury
of "new", and first-owned and personal choice.

As a young mother with economic restraints
she clad her children carefully as their
budget permitted. Making certain they
would feel no hesitation of inferiority in their
social atmosphere. Where she, living in poverty
made no complaints, her children were given
to matching their peers' tastes and selections
and she was introduced to the quaint
terminology and reality of peer pressure.

With her grandchild now aged as she was
herself at the advent of her first factory job at
thirteen, nothing is denied. She is aghast at
the casual, thoughtless entitlements. Yet
money no longer scarce, the girl's every desire
is promptly fulfilled. New name-brand
garments, for the others, not yet outgrown
are simply "ugly". New cell phone for the other
is "chipped" and no longer desirable; not in
style, nor reflective of the latest technology.

As for her, she assembles her wardrobe
now she can afford anything she desires
finally, at second-hand shops where the
fashion cognoscenti knowingly converge. 

 

 

Once Again To the Breach!

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending steam of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership?

 

The Wind's Domain

 

Benign as the ceiling of this world appears
this day, with luminous streaks of clouds
so brilliantly flamed silver by the early
afternoon sun, there is no warmth in the
atmosphere and no escape from the bellowing
wind that rudely abrades everything it
touches with its belligerent presumption.

The carbon-icy probes of the wind rage
its sovereignty over all living things
inspiring a cowering terror the small
furred creatures of the forest well recall
as a partner to winter. Even the crows
avoid its ferocity, abstaining flight for
hunched, darkly sinister perches.

The colossal old beech is unmoved
while all about it, trees of far newer vintage
wave and weave about in surrender to the
wind's merciless aggression. It stands,
that venerable beech, still and dominant
like a placid pachyderm patriarch.

Where once a grape vine grew on its
lower limbs in graceful symbiotic accord
flourished, producing sourly mean fruit
those limbs of the beech long since assumed
a curtsy to their companionship, though the
gnarled old vine has since decayed into
nothingness; the host recalls its tenant.

A gathering litter of dry leaves, needles
twigs and branches descend as helpless victims
to the dictate of the wind, leaving the trees intact
but for those prepared by time and disease to
split and topple, cracking the air with their
torment. The mud-turgid water of the forest
creeks usher along new-fallen offerings to
generously augment the rich forest aggregate. 

 

The Inner Self

 

Life is a difficult passage - from childhood
curiosity, stimulation and growing aspirations
to the development of memory, experience,
regret and profound concerns and finally,
disappointments. We are singularly fortunate
when the serendipity of personal fortune
outweighs the overlapping misfortunes that
are met and dealt with on our life-journey.

It is incumbent upon us all, in reflection of
the finer emotions we are gifted with, to care.
The manner in which we express that care, on
every conceivable level, identifies us as
individuals. When caring becomes an intolerable
burden that makes a misery of our lives, there
is a useful human antidote: humour.

There is no situation, however stressful and unhappy
in its dark bleakness that does not hint at humour
for even humour can have its grim edge, lifting
us from submission to despair. Before we
stretch the tether of emotional balance to its
snapping point, humour beckons to be heeded.

A lighter mood has its own perspective, capable
of reflecting hope and deliverance from the
destitution of lonely, devastating destruction of
confidence in the future. Where there is no hope,
there is no future. Where there is not future, there
is no reason to prolong life. The imperative is to
steer in the direction of life and the future. One
where the light of hope and comedic relief from
life's stressors liberate us from rejecting ourselves.

We can laugh and find humour everywhere; light
and carefree, or mercilessly dark. But humour
withal. Transient but renewable, sturdily useful
enrapturing at times, insightful and mind-directing
it may become a tool of choice in our enduring
free-choice subliminal quiver of survivalist options.

 

 

The Heart Is The Matter

It is a public space, after all. A place, you see
where people are gathered when suddenly -
or chronically - their bodies stutter, halt
in their normal, mechanistic routines. A
place where health professionals, groomed
and expertly schooled to differentiate, to
diagnose and to offer and effect amelioration
are stationed within the labyrinthine confines
of old piles of steel, concrete and brick.

Naked curiosity follows me unabashedly
defying anonymity while utilizing it to
advantage. Vetting my social status through
my dress code, evaluating my obvious age and
most evident physical appearance against the
possibilities of my afflictions. The mystery
cannot be too deep for this is the cardiology
waiting room and a technician bids me to a
nearby chamber for a pre-appointment
cardiogram. Unneeded, for I have so recently
been more than adequately screened.

But my name revealed and the clues
gathering, the men and women seated there
in pairs and singly, young and of middle age
elderly and decrepit, are alert to any and all
revelations to lighten the boredom of the wait
and their burdensome self-concern. The
television screen, mounted high in a corner,
captures most swivelling eyes, but not the minds
behind them. Few opt to ease the wait by reading,
but The Economist is well worth the effort.

From the corridors, purposeful footsteps,
voices raised in querulous conversation; no one's
favourite ambiance. No sharp odours of
disinfectants detectable in this wing of this
campus of this municipal hospital serving over
one million citizens. Outside the windows, the
sky is hooded with brightly beaming clouds. A
sneak preview of late autumn sun glances briefly
through a slit in the contiguity of the clouds.
There will be far more to this unassuming
day than the current landscape assumes. 

 

Breaking News

 

Brilliant sunshine streams through the
windows of our breakfast room as we take
our leisurely breakfast. Though it is crisply
cold out, our little dog's preferred spot
these late autumn days, is the wood deck
seated happily within the radiant ambiance
of a perfectly cloudless porcelain sky.

This brief reprieve from winter's onset
coddles us with a sense of nature's favour
and we immerse ourselves in the pleasures
derived from such leisure, inviting yet
another cup of coffee for him, tea for me.
Flying through the sun-kissed-green branches
of the backyard spruce, a small flock of
purple finches, their sibilant chorus
perfecting the priceless atmosphere.

As we murmur contentment with this
breaking day, breaking our overnight fast,
we consume also the breaking news of the day.
Radio newscast, augmented and magnified
by print reports in full from the day previous.
And we read of peacekeepers killed in Congo,
humanitarian aid workers abducted and
murdered in Afghanistan, cholera in Haiti,
church bombings in Iraq, priests and
parishioners - all mercilessly slaughtered.

And we are given pause in the breaking of
this day. This is our day, not to be confused
or conflated in any measure with the tragedies
unfolding elsewhere in the world. Our country
does not sentence a mother of five to death
for her crime of giving insult to the Prophet.
Our country has sentenced a mother of two
infants to 25 years of remorse for destroying
her children in a mad fit of ownership,
denying their grieving father custody. 

 

Apart and Beyond

 

The man is resolved and clearly indefatigable.
He has identified a mission to which he devotes
himself and upon which he spares no efforts to
achieve. He resembles in purpose, if not in
presence, Sisyphus, for despite his prodigious
efforts, his goal will never completely be achieved.
He has selflessly set himself the task of remediating
the harm to natural surroundings that others
cavalierly inflict. His dedication to the effort
purely altruistic, he seeks no acclaim and no
notice comes his way, as his work consumes his
days. Where others insult the landscape with the
soiled and degraded detritus of urban life,
discarding what is no longer valued, he tracks,
isolates, gathers those items in homage to nature.

His burgeoning task is never-ending, for it seems
that no one cares of humankind's indebtedness.
With his voluminous knapsack stretched taut with
its torn, broken rusted pieces of discards, he
strains his way out of the ravined woods, back
arched with the effort, legs pushing uphill under
the weight of his burden. That which must be wrestled
out of the deep wooded pockets too large and
cumbersome, is pulled patiently uphill. The
objects retrieved as various as overstuffed chairs,
deck furniture, matted mattress coils, shattered,
rusted bicycles, highway signs, boards and fencing,
tires, wheel-less wagons and coils of barbed wire.

He is a large man of sturdy physique and middle
age. His clothing shabbily utilitarian as befits
the task he has set himself loading the resulting mass
of refuse time after time into the back of his truck,
he hauls it to recycle depots; his self-appointed duty.
Not entirely a thankless job, since the obvious
satisfaction he derives must fulfill in him a valuable
and deeply-rooted imperative. He sets himself apart
and beyond; no mere example, but an exemplar. 

 

Forever Dreaming

She had an older brother, Sammy was his name. Her father used to take her and Sammy on picnics when she was a little girl. Her mother disliked the country and went to the cinema instead. They would picnic, the three of them, happy to be without the nagging voice of mother, wife. The father's gentle hands and shaggy beard, a familiar solace at home, became a guiding mentor in the woods, on the riverbanks, traversing small streams. She was happy then, and laughed.

An accident with the brother, he died. She cried. Her robust father became drawn and pale, lost weight and he too died, though it had nothing to do with grief. Although there was that, too.

After, her mother used to say to her all the time: "Miss Longface, smile some time! It's not that I want to see you smile. I don't care for myself, but do you think any nice men will be attracted to such a sour face?" She was a dutiful daughter, did everything her mother wanted her to, but she winced at the order to look happy. Happiness was her lapsed childhood, the memory she had of a happy family. She knew though, it was illusory; there never had been a happy family. Or, if it had existed, she had laughed it out of existence. The Angelic Host had been made jealous by her happiness.

The travelling salesman hadn't been put off by her sad-faced exterior. Her dreamy, lost eyes, the bruised mouth, the long dark hair, unharnessed, enraptured him, captured him. Her mother was glad to see her go. "Go, I'm sick of seeing such a face around me all the time", her mother said.

And Clara too, was glad to sever her connection with the woman who was her mother. Finally, the tumult, the ever-present curses, would evaporate.

At night, Morris himself brushed her long hair. Gently, as he knew she would like it done. At night, when nothing moved but the shadow of memories; when there was no sound but their shallow breathing, he made love to her with gentle hands. He made her forget to be sad. But only at night. In the morning, she always regretted her lapses.

Morris was a good provider and delighted in bringing her little gifts, useless trinkets. Murmuring thank-you, she took them but he never saw her wear them.

Morris noted her grave silences becoming more prolonged. Particularly after he had been travelling on his job. Her withdrawals bothered him only slightly. He liked her sweet silence, her poignant solitudes. But he decided he would give up his travelling occupation. He apprenticed himself to a cobbler, an old man on Dundas Avenue.

They lived at that time in a little flat on Manning Avenue, across the street from the bottling works, and every morning he would kiss Clara good-bye and walk to work. In the evening when he returned, his dinner would be waiting and so would Clara be.

In a few years, the old cobbler decided to retire and Morris offered to buy him out. He moved Clara into the rooms behind the shop. Now he could see her throughout the day, moving wraithlike about the rooms, dreamily. Morris dug a little garden for her behind the shop, and in the spring he planted anemones, marigolds, so that their frail slender shapes, their golden colours, might cheer her, give her silent pleasure.

If they did, she gave no outward sign, but sometimes he saw her standing at the window, looking through at the garden, never herself going to work in it.

One winter morning, while it was still dark and snow was softly falling, he helped her deliver a baby. She had carried easily, a dreamy expression on her face, her body becoming ever more bulky, but seeming oddly, more graceful than ever. Promise me, she had said to him, promise that you will help me.

During the night, when the baby cried, he brought the tiny boy to her and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her suckling the child. He watched her, with her great hollow eyes, hungrily watching her baby grow.

A friendly, happy child, he toddled after her around the little rooms. As he grew older, he became incautiously curious and despite Clara's anxious hoverings, the child ventured out into the streets to explore. He wanted to be with other children.

He had a wide grin, an exuberant manner, and a happy, slurred 'hi' greeted everyone. The child loved people and no adult spurning of his overtures, no childish slurs arrested his friendly advances.

As he grew older, people began to mumble dark things. The butcher's wife, next door, came into the shop to tell Morris he should keep the boy at home. His happy moonface frightened her. The people from the laundry, on the other side, told their children to stop calling the little boy names, but also not to play with him. Morris shook his shoulders with regret, promising nothing, when the complaints flooded in.

Clara knew nothing about the peoples' fear and distrust of her shining boy. Morris observed her unexpressed love for their son, her constant state of anxiety. He tried to explain to the boy why it was necessary for him to stay home. The boy looked lovingly at this father and repeated, in his gutteral tones "Da-vid stay ho-ome!" He never did, of course, although it was evident how much he wanted to please.

As the boy grew older, he began exploring further afield. Sometimes, a policeman would bring him home, shaking his head as he watched the tired little shoemaker scold the hulking boy with the silly grin on his face. Soon, too, ugly rumours began making the rounds and Morris began to notice how much business was falling off.

Once, a knot of angry people assembled outside the shop. They shouted to Morris that he would have to keep Clara's boy, (an 'animal' they called him), inside. Or, they said, they would do something to have him put away. One neighbour, feeling Morris's anguish, came around later, to explain sympathetically that it wasn't that the boy had actually done anything, but that the mothers feared for their daughters, and you couldn't blame them, could you?

Of course, Morris told Clara nothing about what had happened. Again he tried to talk to his son. The boy listened with his mouth hanging agape, as he often did, when he was trying very hard to be good. Saliva ran from a corner of the boy's mouth and Morris gently wiped it away. The boy smiled his love and kissed his father's hand.

Clara never spoke any more during the day. Her eyes were frightened animals. Her eyes no longer looked dreamy; they expressed a frightened prescience. Only at night, she would speak, and then in whispers, when Morris touched her.

Even though the boy was now thirteen years old, she still helped him to dress and undress, tucked him into bed and sat for a while by his bed, Morris beside them, crooning a lullaby until the boy fell asleep, his hand in his mother's.

One evening, when they had just fallen asleep, Morris was brought back to wakefulness by a loud crash. Quietly, he insisted that Clara lie back down and go back to sleep. It had been nothing. When she fell asleep again he silently went to the front of the store and saw that his front window had been smashed. The body of a stray cat that his son sometimes played with, was strung inside the window,swaying with the wind that came through. On its body read a note: "The other animal will be next".

Morris sighed. He cut the cat down and looked for a box to put it in. Then he checked that the front door was locked. Then the back door. Then he wearily made his way back to the little rooms. He looked first in at his son, innocently dreaming, loving the world. He looked long at his wife, fearfully sighing, even in her dreams, fearing the world.

None of the neighbours ever had reason to complain again about the little family.

 

Our Jewish Heritage

There has always been great curiosity expressed with regard to origins; where did it all begin, and how? Geologists, paleontologists, historians, social anthropologists (long before modern science recognized these divisions in intellectual investigation and gave them their present nomenclature) assiduously sifted rock and sand, bones and crockery, deciphered hieroglyphs, pored over ancient writings and tried to make sense of it all. Logically, everything, every phenomenon, be it geologic, biological or cultural-sociographic had to begin somewhere. So where did that peculiar strain of people, Jews, originate, and how?

Somewhere in the Middle East, we know. They are grouped, not with Caucasians, but with the Armenids. This originally nomadic, pastoral group had been little documented in the ancient writings of other people, and it is assumed that reference to a group termed 'the Habiru' in casual and brief mention of a group of troublesome nomads is the first recognition of their existence as a distinct group by another and better-lettered early culture.

From that undistinguished beginning we have a people somehow bound together by a common destiny, a gradually enlightened culture, and a homophilic socialization. This group has ascended the heights of human endeavours, both singly and collectively; it has plumbed the depths of human despair and degradation, and somehow, survived intact. An achievement that no other ancient cultural-ethno-social group can claim. From the ranks of this people have come first and foremost, ideas which have revolutionized civilization, concepts which have paved the way to humanistic enlightenment, and moral and legal laws which have fathered those of the entire Western world. Jewish religion, philosophy, art, jurisprudence, medicine has had an impact on the world whose like has not been equalled by any other single group of people.

As humanists millennia ago, it was recognized that all life is sacred, and from that recognition was enacted moral and ethical laws to protect the very quality of life, and life itself. At a time when slavery was common (when it was sometimes a practical economic solution to survival for the chronically indigent) Jewish law proclaimed that every seventh year any person held in bondage should be deemed a free person.

Because of the respect with which the people termed 'the Habiru' viewed life they eschewed common practises seen in casual and brief early cultures that practised human sacrifice as an appeasement to their gods. Jews viewed this practise with repugnance and replaced such sacrifice with animal sacrifice. And to protect animals, strict laws ensuring humane slaughter were encoded.

And though, like most religions a great many prohibitions (meant to protect both the individual and the status of the religion) became ritual dogma, they could be suspended if under special circumstances life would be endangered by their enactment. Jewish law was not meant to be absolutely inflexible. The law-makers recognized human frailty and the need to be elastic in interpretation so that exigencies could be coped with.

Some very early and forward-thinking Jews wrote a wonderful series of literature embodying all possible human conditions, and at the same time they conceived of monotheism, a startling departure from the pantheism (worship of many gods) then customary throughout the world of religion. Jews, in this context, were enjoined to regard themselves as 'the chosen'. Not particularly 'chosen' as being better or in some manner elevated above their fellow creatures, but as given the responsibility to present a moral example that others might follow and in this indirect way ennoble the world of humankind.

It was a bold decision indeed for a people to determine, even collectively, even involuntarily, to regard themselves as a shining example toward the rest of mankind. Some might term it, with justification, hubristic. But here is where the precept "Act Unto Others" evolves from. If no other guidelines existed for human behaviour, that one alone would suffice.

And the individual was never forgotten. Everyone's 'right' to quality of life was recognized. Welfare or charity then was not the pejorative it has since become. It was the community's responsibility to care for all of its members and this was a responsibility taken seriously, not grudgingly, nor condescendingly.

Children were regarded as a blessing, and they were universally loved, protected and cherished. Education was always held in awe, and avidly sought. Yet the work ethic also was finely ingrained and respected. Uncouth behaviour, which might encompass anything from rudeness to gambling, or a disregard for others, to drinking to excess, was looked upon with revulsion.

Well, it is true that Jews also looked upon themselves, privately, as being distinct, different - other and above. There were Jews, and there were the others - Gentiles. Gentiles could not be presumed to be as steeped in the values and virtues of life as Jews, and therefore, suspect. There was always this great apartness - us and they.

Because of this exclusivity of apprehension, there arose also an exclusivity of thought, and dogmatism crept into the culture, and the interpretation of the popular religion, and Jews often became inward-looking; intellectually and for practical purposes, immune to change. Yet there arose also those who chafed at the bonds imposed and from their ranks came our Thinkers, those who looked further - our two Moseses, our Spinoza, our Marx, our Sholem Aleichem, our Freud, our Herzl, our Einstein, our Chagall.

And there were others - our scientists, philosophers, musicians, artists, writers, philanthropists, jurists, economists, men of medicine, financiers, inventors, industrialists, teachers and yes, even politicians and soldiers. These outstanding and often brilliant people collectively enriched the world with their contribution to the great fund of knowledge being accumulated and utilized.

Although Jewry has produced paragons, it has also produced by far a larger number of quite ordinary folk, the great majority of whom are indistinguishable from those of other backgrounds and traditions. And within the groupings of Jews themselves lie great fractiousness and even bigotry. Social strata have always existed, creating cultural and social ghettos between Jews themselves.

When at one time Sephardim were considered the cultural aristocracy of Jewry, the Ashkenazim were considered the peasantry. With the passage of time that perception has reversed itself, and we see its results in present-day Israel. And Jewish politics is as diverse as the population it represents, further creating internal strife.

Jews, in the collective sense, were in the past imbued with a great vision. Those people have been the progressives, those who stimulate change and progress. Yet these progressives have always been shunned by the established order within the Jewish tradition until the inexorable change occurred and the passage of time softened and blurred their offence, and they were looked upon with pride.

We've produced, as a people, some excellence - and a great deal of dross. Where does the excellence come from, one wonders? As a great amorphous mass of humanity, we've expressed a collective desire to be greater than a mere human might aspire to; greater than the sum of our parts.

We've attempted to be close to a supreme being in our religion; we've tried to behave as the god would have us do. We have tried to better the lot of humankind. Have we succeeded to any great degree? Lamentably, no. The task seems too great. The obstacles placed in the way of fulfillment too overwhelming. Although we have committed ourselves to an ideal which is part way achievable, singly we have not tried to live the ideal nor cared enough for others to strive together to achieve that ideal.

Yet this singular group, with so much potential did return to its roots. A proud and representative number of Diaspora Jews, some by Zionist conviction and zeal, some Holocaust survivors, and others returnees from countries where Jews have not felt comfortable, or have been openly oppressed, live in a state founded in the original land of their forefathers. In that land the ideal was to be realized finally, the dream fulfilled.

For a time it appeared that the original social humanist precepts, the ethics and vision that the prophets of old exhorted; fundamental human values that would enrich the whole while permitting each and every citizen to live with individual grace, would come to pass. The forward thinkers, the socialists, the kibbutzniks, the Labourites, began to fashion the experimental state and the state blossomed, becoming a noble ideal actually fruiting.

Soon, though, the original concept and dedication to egalitarianism gave way gradually to creeping elitism as one social-cultural group disparaged the 'backwardness' of another. And religious fundamentalism with its insistence on strict observance began to force its opinions into state structure.

Hostile neighbours stimulated the siege-mentality which bred militarism, rightist nationalism and xenophobia. In a world that was increasingly perceived as being unsympathetic to Israel, Israel further isolated itself, this time deliberately, by carrying a big stick and using it, and aligning itself with other rightist, nationalist regimes. Once the Labour Party and its socialist precepts was ousted and that of the rightist Likud installed, it could be predicted in which direction Israel, the emotional fount of world Jewry, was headed.

Today an encircled country defies the rest of the world and bitterly denounces its most immediate neighbours. This is bitter gall for a people whose origins, whose roots are so far removed from anti-humanism, from the military ideal, and colonialism.

This situation cannot continue. World Jewry, so possessive and loving of Israel, for the first time begins to caution that country that its focus and mentality must undergo a change and direct itself more in keeping with its traditional view of itself, and its people.

Israelis, stricken by their own hapless direction, ambivalent about their feelings toward their neighbours, uncertain of their country's future, are beginning to re-assess national policy and their own place in the world structure.

There will be a turn-about to the spirit which underlies that elusive, little-understood element, the Jewish soul; sensitivity to one's fellow companions on the earth. And with that change in direction Jews will once more strive to fulfill an ancient precept, and to charge themselves again with the responsibility of the 'example' of the chosen.