Parsing the Malediction

Of course no one ever claimed that living in 

interesting times would be pleasant. That after all 

is the entire point of the clever curse a threat 

wrapped neatly in a polite form of speech.

Politeness and malice make interesting bedfellows

and there are entire cultures built around the

concept of smiling as you thrust a verbal dagger

deep. Although not exactly viewed as a gift

disguised as a malady the world is now steeped

deep in an unleashed pathogen that happened to

emerge from disputed sources within the culture

that birthed the diplomacy of fluff-coated threats.

Entirely of course coincidental. Yet if doubts have

surfaced and a grieving global community expresses

its desire to delve deep into the hooded details of

emergence and worldwide infection we are doomed

to continue living in interesting times since the

venerable source has no intention whatever of casting

illuminating light and reason for scientific display

as a humbly reassuring gesture of mea culpa.

 

 

Under Siege

Hell's gatekeeper, it seems, has become lax

no longer guarding the sacred precincts of the

damned oblivious to the fugitive hosts of hellfire 

abandoning their posts despite that so many have 

descended whose souls require constant flagellation 

in recognition of their sins of commission against 

fellow humans. Aides de feu now roam upper Earth's 

forests bringing with them fire and brimstone and 

inhumane heat the devil himself would happily lave 

within. Rumour has it that an ungodly pact was reached 

between heaven and hell not to interfere with one another's 

gifts to humanity. Indubitable gifts they are; sun and rain  

from above, fire from below, essential to existence

the excess of which equates to nature's dysfunctional

uneven distribution over her creation; abnormal heat

domes of punishing depths sparking drought and

wildfires of perishing dimensions while elsewhere

hurricanes usher copious rains flushing mountain

sides into valleys below while rivers and lakes swell

overrun their floodplains drowning humanity's efforts

at taming nature's geological boundaries into disaster.

 

 

Forest Drama

 

Mere moments earlier the afternoon sun

had beamed its light shafts through the

forest canopy and blue appeared between

the windswept cathedral of forest giants

when suddenly unsuspected forces altered

the stage as the heavens innocent of clouds

became hostage to an oncoming black swelling

presence presaging a series of violent thunder

storms bellowing in the distance and swiftly

closing the gap. Soon curtains of rain began to

swell the forest stream and in its meadow 

wildflowers so recently preening in the grace 

of the sun were battered by the force of the

unsympathetic rain in an atmosphere suddenly

dark with the drama of thunder and lightning.

The Dark of Night

 

Rain has finally ended. The rolling booms

of thunder no longer reverberating through the

forest. The canopy drips incessantly relieving itself

of the burden of rainwater. On the hillsides the

excess runs off into the forest creek below

swelling the passage of water meandering

through the ravine finding its way eventually

to the great river far beyond the reaches of the

forest. Wind gusts that accompanied the storm

blasting through tree masts clacking their tops

in a fiercely disturbed dance of courtly sentinels

raked through dead limbs of old pines and maples

cracking and sending them to the forest floor.

The atmosphere is dense, dark and silent. No

birds sing, no animals venture from their dens.

No bees, no butterflies or damselflies could

survive nature's assault and remain securely

hidden in tiny nooks and crannies of tree bark. 

The dim light of late afternoon falters and fades

welcoming early dusk and soon the dark of night.

There Be Dragons

Ancient mariners knew their navigating craft well

avoiding sailing their ships too close to the edge 

of the world for of a certainty there where the ocean 

spilled into the great forbidding abyss beyond and 

below so too would they and perish. They have their 

modern counterparts who unlike the mariners have 

ample access to proven history but yet deny that 

Jews ever inhabited a swath of the Middle East 

in antiquity amply documented as Judea. These

present-day fantacists state with the conviction of 

the addle-pated mired in hostility to reality that Jews 

have no rights in the Middle East for they have 

no history there and nor was there ever a Temple 

built by Solomon sacred to Judaism, for Solomon

like Moses and Jesus was in fact a Palestinian Arab. 

Jews, ipso facto have no right to pray at the Temple 

Mount where sits a recent Muslim gathering place built 

atop the Biblical era Beit Hamikdash in memory of a 

fabulous winged horse who flew up to heaven, a 

most blessed event, Prophet Mohammad astride. 

 

 

Premiering Near You

Call it a dress rehearsal. It was all of that

in living colour when West and Coastal

North America dissolved into an oven of

overheated atmospheric misery ratcheting up

air conditioning while gas extraction came to

a halt because of the heat of a steroidal summer

that led to crackling wildfires, mass evacuations

and towns scorched into ashes. Think that's all?

The extreme weather conditions impacted shelter

and confidence then went on to wreak ruination

in the food supply; poultry and fish pre-broiled

to death unable to survive the heated torment.

Fruit dangling from trees cooked in the heat and

rotted. Crops failed to flower and bear seed to

feed the nations, and forage for livestock failed; 

in one fell swoop home and haven and food all

threatened. And this a mere dress rehearsal.

Chin Chuk Granny

 

When you are young and your mind is

churning and turning over everything that

you read and hear and learn and you begin

to trust your cerebral functioning and believe

in your intelligence and you have an opinion

to ventilate and few will listen because you're

simply too young to know the answers to

questions that the social order grapples with

you sigh and turn inward until eventually you

speak the code that others do who listen to you

since your opinion echoes theirs and any that

fail to are tucked safely away from scrutiny.

In time you are elderly and discover a very

different ethos and culture eludes you. Best

keep your experience and knowledge within 

airing it exclusively between peers. For in 

the opinion of earlier generations it is not 

wisdom that age has conferred upon you

but a certain arch unknowingness rendering

current social mores totally foreign. Whatever

you say is received as archaic and 'cute' not in

the sense of foxy intelligence but as one speaks

of the antics of a puppy, the innocence of a

child. From child to adult to senior = infancy.

Your senses fail but not your sensibilities.