Sign of Our Times
When our children were young
and adorably stubborn and their
parents adamant that they be
compliant in consuming the
nutritious food served them in
those proportions suitable for
young bodies to thrive, growing
healthy and robust, it took both
their parents' entreaties to convince
them their chiming complaints were
unjustified and unuseful to their
actual needs. Occasionally they
might relent and pick daintily at
the fish, liver or brassica offending
them on their dinner plates, even
on occasion lift a morsel to their
downward curling lips and manage
to gulp them down, with much
encouragement. Adults now, their
tastes encompass mostly what
they long ago spurned, while
those still offensive tastes are
banished. Alone, together at our
dinner table, it is I alone who
remonstrates on those occasions
when our children's father fails
to appreciate those same dinner
offerings rejected by our offspring,
a sign of our less tumultuous times.
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| Credit: Janus Brink |
In A Nutshell
It has been hundreds of thousands
of years in the making, far less
a social construct than truly a
distinct gender difference that
even early homo sapiens understood
for they were not (self)-named
'man-the-wise' for nothing. That
females gave birth and in so doing
the busy mother and the mewling
infant required support to survive
was simply acknowledging reality
of a kind amply recognized by all
animal species. Those biological
adaptations resulting in male and
female merely Nature's formula
for reproduction as the mistress of
existence fiddled with her archaic
architectural plans melding physics,
chemistry and organisms in a
choreography of imperious design
to amuse her royal majesty, sole
witness and grand proprietress of
the dazzling, twisting Universe whose
infinite attention to scale and minute
detail alike inflicted upon Planet Earth
a species whose antics, emotions and
pathologies guaranteed her not one
wasted moment of suspense. Assuming
she endowed those females with so
many attributes not unlike her own,
creation among them. The puzzle left
would be what she exampled the
male psyche upon in her fertile
imagination, laughing indulgently
as he created the idea of an all
powerful deity, just incidentally
in his very own humble image.
Existence
The timeless, perplexing and
sublimely complex creation
that hums and thrums throughout
the Universe holds endless
fascination for those times
when our minds contemplate
the unknowable vastness and
diversity that surrounds us, in
everlasting space, dark and
teeming with celestial bodies
whose chemistry the brilliance
of a scientific mind deciphers,
beyond the comfort of we
whose focus remains close at
hand, sighting about us the
wonder of ephemera, butterflies
and morning mist, spring peepers
and flowering vines, the fragrance
of favoured dishes, the flood of
memory bringing us to tears.
Our amazement that we were
born and out of fortune's sideways
glance we met to recognize our
future of shared thoughts, love
and tenderness, the care taken
in the duality of two becoming
as one, living our allotted time
given to a microscopic presence
within the great gyrating
wheel of the Universe.
Offence Intended
What time are we saving,
which daylight hours hoarding
when night falls so rapidly
sending the gloom of early
dusk so swiftly to greet
the dark, eager to invade
our senses. The utterly
senseless tradition has long
outlived any usefulness
imagined by the international
community which conspired
to wreak mass confusion
when it unveiled a dastardly
plot to irritate and confuse
our biological diurnal clock.
Just ask our canine companions
outraged at the hour's lapse
when we finally move our
lazy intent to present their meals,
an hour late sans apology.
Awaiting Winter
Early dusk dominates the
horizon of this overcast day.
The sky's cauldron has been
brewing a turn toward rain
but has failed to tip the vessel
releasing the downpour to the
waiting landscape below.
Streaked clouds of darkly
purple hue yet linger but the
wind that incited them to
mayhem has retreated in a huff
of disobeyed orders. Not a
whisper of expectation remains
within the stillness of the
fall woods until a clatter of
crows lift in unison above the
diminishing canopy of the
woods heckling the powers
dictating climate and the seasons
soon enough to extract revenge.
The Midnight Hours
They behave as though
supremely entitled, boldly
setting forth, their nocturnal
trysts with our composters
a study in recycling cast-off
foodstuffs unfit for our
selective consumption, but
just dandy in their nature-refined
estimation, leaving little to rot
into garden-variety compost.
Though they move with confidence
and the grace of nature's favour
they also go abroad at the
midnight hour, masked and
stealthy, our furry guests.
The feeders we place for the
cold-weather convenience of
migrants and over-wintering
birds has a certain renown and
decided popularity among the
diurnal contingent of
neighbourhood squirrels, but the
night hours belong to the raffish
raccoons delicately picking
among seeds and nut offerings
their own particular treats.
The Rescue
Quite the pair they are, the
large black-muscular dog loping
beside the laboured gait of the
man; an arresting sight in
contrasts. The man, his tall
but slight and angular form
bent toward the ground
proceeding carefully, the dog
proceeding with its attention
fully on the awkward progress
of its companion. The man's
smile slants across the landscape
of a face well acquainted with
suffering, wan and accepting.
His chest strangely concave,
as though his maker, distracted
in the process of building his
body forgot half. Unlike the
large dog's deeply muscular
chest heavy with perceived
menace. Bred to inspire fear,
the dog is herself fearful, shy
and meekly spooked, her human
companion gently reassuring
her, salving her terrorized
reaction to the unfamiliar.
Her needs motivate his
compassion, his familiarity
with accidents of fate equipping
him, her grateful reliance on
his guiding intervention,
his assigned purpose in life.
