Trumped!

What an extraordinarily remarkable
and talented man, deliberately 
presenting himself as a risible
visual treat, because everyone loves
a clown and his visage is so
disarmingly amusing. Yet it is his
deeper purpose behind that facade
to imbue in the great nation he leads
a rediscovered sense of purpose and
nobility, to pursue the great American
dream of a great nation dedicated to
world fraternity, obligated to the 
grace of avuncular yet occasionally
firm guidance to a world astray.
Who else would have been capable
of restoring to the world-weary, bored
population its respected past as a
guide to the perplexed and a haven
for the persecuted? This is a man of
charming guile knowing his people
better than they know themselves
anticipating reaction to his uncouth
utterings and barbarian habits - oh, all
a show, not a window to his soul, you
see, who foresaw the result of his
presidency inciting to the public a return
to antecedents of resilience and trust
determination and pride, honouring
the strength of decency and purpose
gathering itself to denounce and to
resist the dictates of a pretender.

A Necessity of Life

Literature energizes the searching mind
teasing it to its own creativity. In
the absence of books there is unmindful
sterility. Language entices, it expands
vocabulary and vision. It becomes a 
inspirational landscape for the brain 
searching for enticement. A library 
represents the landscape of excitement, 
one to be explored with passion and 
dedication. From one soul's creative 
genius to the hungry perusal of the next, 
humankind indulges itself in the 
fascination of stories to be shared, 
luxuriated within, cherished and preserved. 
Without books the landscape of the mind
becomes a yawning exercise in vacuity
a passive, disinterested scene where
ennui becomes master. Life limits
itself to a vapid desolation devoid of 
drama and interest, the crises of humanity 
and the triumphs of the spirit unexplored.

Our Affair

You smile, draw me into your
arms with ease, hug me to your chest
and move with me to the music that
plays in fond remembrance of our
young years together, swaying and
clinging to one another measuring
step for step in the graciousness of
dance. This is our private, oh so
intimate link to the past, the music
playing down the corridor of memory
as we hug and we feel the warmth
coursing through from each to the
other. You hum and I softly sing the
words we recall so easily, plumbed
from the depths of those early times
and if I forget you remember to share
and on we dance, guided by a gossamer
delicate thread of time coursing
between us. The length of my form
fitting yours, the electricity of your
touch on my hip, my back, my waist
never failing its message, my love.

Restoring the Nest

Household alert: feel left astray
because your offspring have grown
no longer needing your guidance
and home comforts, prepared to
face life as competent adults
leaving you to cope with the loss
still in your nurturance stage and
adrift, just look a little closer to
home. Their father is still there
and as the original emotional
attachment remains prepared to be
guided and nurtured and pampered
as only his long-time spouse knows
how. Invite him to accompany
you doing the supermarket shopping
filling up the shopping cart with
groceries; task him with looking
for freshness dates on products
teach him to handle produce for
freshness. Then wait for that flood
of nostalgia to wash over you when
you unpack it all once home and
discover all the sugar-salt-fat-laden
items he's managed to sneak into
the cart when you weren't paying
attention. Sigh with satisfaction that
life has now returned to normal.

Overhead

When they were young
and always underfoot
they were encouraged
to entertain playmates
in their very own rooms.

     All that noise
     the childish exuberance
     sheer zest for life
     made their parents
     nervous and upset.

Now that the young
are grown and become
nubile they entertain
playmates in those
very same rooms

     upsetting their parents
     making them nervous
     straining to hear
     some reassuring sound
     from the bedroom overhead.

International What?

It was fated through no deliberate
choice of my own that my birth
as a female would result in
sharing and celebrating life with
my eternal counterpart born a
male, enabling us to discover one
another while barely free of
childhood, advancing toward our
destiny as man and woman
dedicated to life inseparable to
forge a future in a spontaneous
tandem of adventure and expression
sharing thoughts and emotions
struggles and disappointments, a
family, travelling the world 
entrenched in mutual delight with 
life in all its manifest opportunities.
The immutable gender traits 
alongside those transcending mere 
gender. Grateful I am to be a 
woman, grateful that he is a man. 
Puzzled am I that the world 
proclaims a day dedicated to 
international womanhood as
though fulfilling a need to 
applaud women leads to pride in
accomplishment as a state that 
women themselves cannot achieve 
without that courtesy. For I am
woman complementing man.


 

 

If...When...Who

If nature's inventive curiosity
created humankind with a bounty
of gifts such as free will and the
capacity to reason, balanced by
pathogens afflicting the soul and
the mind affixed to the passion for
survival, who will judge the final
analysis of failure or success
and by what criteria? Will
Survival of the Fittest be the
determining characteristic by 
which humankind distinguishes
itself, in the rejection of moderation
leading inevitably and invariably
to never-ending conflicts, grasping
jealousy of territorial advantage?
Nature, stepping in from time to
time to advance the narrative from
uncertainty to finality, throws in
the scourges of disease, drought
firestorms and hurricanes, leavened
with earthquakes and volcanic
action, a drama transfixing rapt
attention, whereupon the wagers begin.
Are we entitled to wonder with
whom her entertainment is shared?