The Declining Canopy
A sweet breeze shifts the
drying foliage of beech and birch,
maples and oaks on the mountain
slopes. Sudden gusts release
semi-transparent yellow leaves
to finally part with their life
perches as they silently flutter
like resigned butterflies to
gather on the forest floor,
the acrid flavour of their agony
stirring on the breeze. Chickadees
and nuthatches flicker and flirt
in the woods beyond. The rich
burgundy of oak leaves, the
reds of maples contrast with the
living blue of a pair of bluejays
their shrill calls reverberating
on the landscape. Acorns and beech
nuts, a harvest for unseen fall
furred gatherers, click audibly
in sharp rebuke to the wind. Above,
gathering clouds ambush the sun
whose light warming rays filter
through the declining canopy.
The Sky's a Stage
The night had been cool, the
sky so clear it seemed as though
we could reach up, stretch a bit,
and a little more, to grasp
the handle of the Little Dipper
and spill the fiery stars it held
upon our heads and the Stygian
night below. When morning dawned
the landscape was sodden with
heavy dew, all that was left
of the spilled contents of the
tantalizingly beckoning dipper.
As dawn entered, she ushered
the sun to dry the dew and
warm the landscape. Soon, a
crowd of clouds shuffled into
view, bickering among themselves
for the valued privilege of
challenging the sun on its throne
of imperial rule and rudely
intruded to shield the world
below from the pleasure of
light, warmth and beauty,
insisting garrulously on their
turn in the theatre of the sky,
with the thundering bombast
of their drum roll heralding
triumph of aggression over
harmoniously placid content,
showering down upon us
lightning, sleet and fury.
Come On Buy
Rural small-town America in a
state whose population is meager
and whose landscapes are vast and
geologically majestic, where the
economy rests in boastfully
proudly inviting the world to visit
at a price that tourism gains a
livelihood we see pride struggling
with necessity, orientation
subservient to attracting guests
to gawk at the natural splendours of
magnificent mountains and
glistening lakes and rivers
into whose landscape crowds
the ubiquity of tawdry trailer parks,
sleazy rental cabins, upscale condos,
recreational minutiae, scrubby
family entertainment centres
service-slanted to satisfy the
vacationing whims of visitors,
an economic scheme that chugs
along in grudging benefit to the
homebound folk leasing their state
in temporary welcome to the world.
Reborn
An unusually overheated late
fall day culminated with a
precipitous overnight temperature
drop creating an inversion that
left the cover on the box of his
truck beyond merely dewy,
enough to drown a creature
so slight its death was of no
account in the Universe. He
reached to remove the still form
gently paying tribute to its scant
presence in death as in life,
but when its sodden folded wings
were touched, its fragile legs
twitched. So he grabbed a leaf
and manoeuvred the drenched
creature with its wide white wings
onto the leaf, held it that way
in full exposure to the morning
sun, then placed the leaf with its
slight burden on a sun-warmed
rock. Soon, the moth was restored
from near-death to a renewed
passion for life and off it flew
into a new day without so
much as a backward glance.
Her Supreme Majesty
Hordes of sight-seeking tourists
converge on an area of splendid
natural geology, with breathtaking
vistas of mountains marching in
vast discipline upon the far horizon
yet achieving a measure of intimacy
by clambering up a mountainside
to view an arras of scattered boulders
and smooth granite surfaces embracing
a raceway for a mountain stream
hurtling itself toward the river below.
Tourists spill from a parking lot
toward trails leading to bowls
scoured out of the granite where
rushing water enters and revolves
circularly and powerfully as it has
done since time immemorial, carving
the basin upon whose presence
attention is riveted. Venerable oaks,
beeches, pines and yellow birch
stand sentry beside worn trails
leading over latticeworks of roots
and rocks to a series of granite
levels where the stream froths and
falls ferociously over boulders only
to slither silently on the smooth
descents. Standing in awe and
admiration at the raw power of nature,
humankind grasps but briefly
the supreme majesty before it.
Their Social Contract
They squat, scattered along the
backwoods highway, a forlornly
depressed area of a wealthy nation
whose time had never arrived;
townspeople content in the
predictable familiar, an area
whose residents, steeped in the
love of their forefathers who
toiled with scant reward
see nothing to be gained by the
curiosity leading invariably to
greener pastures, for their own
is deemed sufficiently green, if
not overly productive. There they
live out their lives, in the comfort
the confines their town offers,
for their plight of poverty is
universal to their heritage and
experience. Not for lack of pride
do they remain, the codgers, young
and old, pledging allegiance to
their nation, their flag, but placing
their trust and emotional investment
in what they hold most dear, what
their poppy and their mammy valued,
circumspection and suspicion
of the world so alien beyond
the confines of town and country
where all are known and held
in fondly confident contempt.
Mirroring Nature
The mountain stream-fed
lake mirrors in its placid
tranquility the autumn-burned
foliage that nature has so
artfully groomed to maturity
as a background screen,
patiently awaiting this
October day to flaunt the
timeless beauty of a scene
whose fleeting presence in
the transition between seasons
tantalize the human eye with
form, texture and colour
that has motivated the artistic
souls of the authentically
talented to paint into
landscapes as treasured
as nature's fleeting landscapes;
the paintings rare treasures,
vastly outliving the originals.
The originals costing the eye
of the observer nothing to enter
that briefly enchanted world.
The paintings, superbly emulating
the reality, carrying a price only
the privileged may access,
successfully mirroring nature.
