Suffering Children

She listened carefully, as she was trained to do. She was hearing yet another story. There would be some permutations that might make this story slightly different from all the others, but broadly speaking, they fell into a few categories, and the individual stories themselves did not distinguish themselves all that much. A neighbour, or a teacher calling to report a suspected case of child abuse. Even an extended family member might do that. There would be an exchange of information. She would listen sympathetically, attempt to draw out details to ensure she was getting as much of a balanced report of the matter as possible. It has not been unknown for someone to report child abuse, out of personal malice, where none existed. She would offer tentative advice after asking leading questions and weighing the responses.

It was her job. It was what she was trained to do. It was, in fact, what she saw as her responsibility to society. To respond, as much as she could under the law, to protect the well-being of vulnerable children.

There were so many days when she returned home exhausted after a day of listening, allowing someone to ventilate whatever their concerns were. To draw out the essential details. And when those details emerged and occasionally constituted really dreadfully abusive situations where it was clearly imperative for a case worker like herself to visit the home, evaluate further, question the child or children involved, look around at their living conditions, speak to their care-giver - sometimes she was completely drained of emotion.

Why did people have children to begin with if they couldn’t care adequately for them? This was an absurd, unanswerable question, its only purpose to rage against the injustice of seeing those large haunted eyes of children, afraid of being ‘disciplined’, fearful of a stranger entering the home to ask confusing questions. She had to be careful with those questions. She could not ‘lead’ a child to respond fulsomely, to explain to her precisely what was occurring. For the most part the children involved did not really know what was happening. What was happening to them. They were so accustomed to being abused and neglected, they had no reason to believe normal life for them would be anything else than what they experienced.

And even young children had a kind of intuition, that if they said something that would place their guardian, their mother or their father in a dim light, there might be consequences. Consequences like further abuse after the departure of the stranger. Consequences such as being removed from their home, taken to somewhere like a prison for being bad, for making their parents or their parent dislike them and hurt them. Hurt them in so many ways, telling them that they’re worthless, they’re a millstone, their mother wishes they’d never been born. Slapping them around because they’re in the way, and irritating, annoying little pests.

There were days when she told herself she was functionally and emotionally in need of help herself, to the point where she was incapable of dealing with another familial mess. As accustomed as she was to dealing with these dysfunctional situations passing as families, she would never become hardened to the reality of the misery of a neglected, abused child.

“ I don’t quite know what to do, where to turn”, the faintly plaintive voice fed its worry into her ear. “It’s my daughter, my granddaughter, I worry about my granddaughter”.

“Your granddaughter. Why do you feel you have reason for concern?”

“It’s my daughter. She’s under stress, she always is. She’s a single mother. She’s finding it very difficult to cope.”

“How old is your granddaughter?”

“She’s thirteen, thirteen and some. She has a good mind of her own, and her mother tries to dominate her.”

“Dominate her?”

“Well, she’s very manipulative, my daughter, and controlling, and she doesn’t like it when someone opposes her, expresses other opinions, holds values she doesn’t.”

“All right, and why do you fear for your grandchild?”

“She’s a sensitive child. An intelligent, highly creative, bright child. These are characteristics she shares with her mother, actually. But her mother is exploiting her position as a mother in a very brutal way with her daughter.”

“Brutal? Is she … is she … how?”

“Our daughter is a well-paid professional, she’s had a good education, but she is also violently abusive in her language, her emotions. She has never tried to restrain herself, she spouts invective, really viciously, screams obscenities at her child. She berates her, she undermines the child’s self-confidence.”

“I see. A very strong personality. Has your grandchild complained to you? Have you witnessed any of this, these violent emotional expressions?”

“Witnessed it? Yes, we’ve been the objects of much of it ourselves, my husband and I. And even when our grandchild was much younger she was exposed to it, and had become a victim of it.”

“I see. Yet you’re particularly concerned at this juncture?”

“Yes, this is a young girl in her formative years, uncertain of herself, and her mother is involved in unsettling her, not supporting her emotionally. You can’t keep telling a child that she’s stupid without incurring long-lasting trauma!”

“I agree. I certainly agree, madam. Would you like to make this a formal complaint? We can have a case worker go out to the home and speak to your grandchild.”

“No, I don’t think… I honestly don’t know what to think. Our daughter is in a difficult position. Coping is hard for her. We’ve done our best to help, and we always have, but I’ve reached a point where I hardly know what next to do. I’m worried because she’s also abusing her daughter physically. I’m afraid that she will lose touch with reality in one of her rages.”

“She’s hitting the girl? Is she slapping her with an open hand?”

“Well yes, with an open hand. And later she tells me that it’s her daughter that’s at fault, that her daughter has become physical with her mother. Our granddaughter is taller than her mother, she’s a large girl, strong, but that doesn’t sound like the girl we know. We used to be her secondary care-givers when her mother was at work. Our granddaughter isn’t physical by nature. I used to encourage her when she was young in her early grades, to hit back if someone hit her. She refused, she was adamant, she said she couldn’t do that. So I don’t believe that she initiates physical abuse, even though our daughter claims that as fact.”

“You don’t believe her.”

“No, I know my daughter. I know my granddaughter. They do share some personality traits, but not that. Our grandchild has a natural sense of justice, she has always been that way, she just would not attack without extreme provocation - to protect herself. She has told me that her mother is relentless, just won’t stop once she’s launched herself into a rage. I recognize her descriptions of her mother out of control. Our grandchild will take to her room, her mother will just invade her there, not stopping for one instant to give the child some relief. And I know what it’s like, my husband and I have experienced the very same abusive behaviour from our daughter. She has always been controlling and abusive, from the time she was a child herself.”

“I see. Listen, if your daughter is abusing her daughter so badly, it would really be helpful if you would agree to having a caseworker go around.”

“I know what you’re saying. On the other hand, I don’t know if I can do this to my daughter.”

“But think of your granddaughter. If things are as rough for her as you say they are, they might progress to a point where she is in real danger.”

“I’ve thought of that. My imagination keeps running away with me. I’ve got a too-vivid imagination in any event, I’m always thinking up dire scenarios. I can’t even be certain that I’m not reacting too strongly to the situation I’m describing to you. But my granddaughter told me on the weekend that her mother had slapped her so hard she thought her nose was bleeding.”

“Well, that sounds pretty bad. That’s serious abuse, that and the verbal tirades you describe.”

“I envision my granddaughter leaving home, just going out the door and instead of going to school, simply disappearing. I’m fearful.”

“I hear you. There’s an element of potential in what you’ve said, it does happen. Will you give me particulars; your daughter’s name and address and telephone number?”

“I … I just can’t, not now, not yet. Can you tell me what the age of majority is?”

“It’s sixteen.”

“My grandchild has two more years to go. “

“Can you afford to put things off for that length of time knowing how seriously dysfunctional your daughter’s household is with respect to her daughter?”

“ I don’t know, I just don’t know. But if I give you the information, and you act on it … You must be aware, I know I am, that mother-daughter relations are often strained, and worse. There must be so many families where what I’ve described to you are common occurrences.”

“Yes, yes that’s true enough.”

“I also want to … you know that I know and most people think of it … well Children’s Aid hasn’t got the greatest reputation for aiding children. There are stories…”

“Yes, you’re right. There are times when things go wrong, when failure results from interventions. But those failures represent a minuscule number of cases. You can’t take those events as representative of the work we do. We’re concerned with the well-being and safety of children, and that’s our prime motivator. We’re skilled professionals in the field, capable of assessing situations and arriving at solutions.”

“Yes, of course. What would happen if our grandchild was taken from her mother? Her father is long gone, he has no interest whatever in the child. He’s never paid anything for her upkeep. He has never in the decade since his absence from her life, even made the remotest attempt to contact her, see the child.”

“I could tell you that in all likelihood you would be chosen at the closest kin to look after the child. She would be placed in your care.”

“And that would destroy my daughter.”

“You think so?”

“I’m grateful to have spoken with you. Perhaps I really needed to someone to speak with, to get some perspective. I’m glad you listened, gave me the opportunity to talk. I’m feeling … a little more … confident - about alternatives, about the future. It may not make sense to you after what I’ve said, but I think I’d better leave things there.”

“If you change your mind… If something further occurs to convince you that intervention is required, please call back.”

She may not. She may. Who really knows?

There was one bit of information that grandmother related that gave me pause. She described how the daughter accused her father of abusing her. Which the grandfather denied. And the grandmother would not believe.

She was after all, she said, always around, she knew what their child was like, growing up, how impossible she was to control. As an adolescent she suddenly arrived home from school one day and began casually throwing obscenities around. No one in their family had ever abused language and social sensibilities in that way.

It was as though the girl had suddenly turned some corner in her psychic life and become someone they hardly recognized.

When they protested at her changed behaviour and vocabulary she had laughed in their faces. “It’s not words that are harmful” she said, derisive of their middle-class shock. “It’s the way people behave, the way they treat one another.”

What could they respond to that, the woman asked rhetorically. She was right and at the same time wrong. Language needn’t be impeccable, but it should be respectful and they were mortally affronted that their daughter would confront them like that. Her siblings did not, and they were boys. Weren’t girls supposed to be more delicate in such matters, more attuned to propriety?

It’s the mother’s assertion that the daughter had no basis in bitterly charging her father with abuse that had me trying to assess what I’d heard, much later. It’s as though somehow an explanation of that now-grown daughter’s evolving behaviour has its basis in an unspoken and sinister secret that only she and her father share.

That the mother strenuously denies.

We may never hear from her again. On the other hand, if matters escalate beyond what the grandmother can handle in her perceived and ongoing maltreatment of the child, we may hear from her again.

It’s these muddled, non-specific attributions that give me a huge headache. To listen to all of this and be able to produce nothing of value to ameliorate an obviously bad situation that will without doubt result in a poor outcome makes me feel that I’m unable to make too much of a difference.

So, I ask myself yet again. Why is it that people have children?

Letter

Our dearest child, it is a matter
of the deepest regret and profound
anguish that we have so utterly
failed in bestowing upon you the
understanding of quite how much
you are loved by us, your parents.

Your father professes to know the
psychological basis of your deep and
now immovable psychosis; your belief
that you were an abused child. I have
no such pretensions to knowing where
your grievance emanates from. My
memories as your mother defy yours.

I think: how can it be possible that
two young parents, in perfect harmony
devoted to their three children, living in
a stable emotional environment,
expressing their care and love for one
another, have yet produced a childhood
so inimical to healthy maturity?

Your personality, like those of your
brothers, is uniquely your own. Unlike
theirs, yours was demanding, abrasive,
defiant, nettlesome, creating a chaos
of confusion among and within us. A
firmer direction than theirs was yours.

But support, stimulation, and opportunities
to advance your interests and skills were
also there. As a young family we shared
and encouraged and experienced together
all manner of social, cultural, adventurous
and mind-enhancing events, binding us
as a loving unit, in healthy accord.

Few efforts were spared by us on your
behalf; we spoke freely and encouraged
open debate and thought. Your formative
years, you inform us now and again, were
freighted with a burden of blame and
accusations where you were singled out
for parental censure, unlike your siblings.

To this psyche-crushing past are all
your ill choices in life and their sorry
conclusions attributed. We anxiously
search our flawed memories and find
nothing there consonant with yours.
What we do recall, even as we continue
experiencing more of the same, is a
child mature in years, still testing us.

So, dear child, we apologize for our
inability to serve your needs, our
incapacity in ensuring that you were
well blessed with that most basic of
childhood needs; an inviolable sense
of security and trust. And confidence
in yourself. You were, and remain,
capable, intelligent, motivated, talented.

That heavy, black cloud of discontent,
that elusive sense of happiness and
satisfaction denied. That we never managed
to lift that oppressive dark cloud long
enough for the rays of comfort and content
to settle over you is a matter of profound
unhappiness to us. As it has always
been for you, our very dear child.

If our realization of having dismally
failed in that most elemental task of
parenthood cannot aid and comfort you,
we understand full well that nothing
will ever emerge to help heal that
festering wound. For that, we are
immensely sad. What else could
we have possibly done back then?

The clarity of my memory refreshes
the vision of a child whose incessant
anger and grievances would not be
abated. One whose bleak lack of joy
brought unease to my heart. Of an
adolescent whose hateful invective
lashed our sensibilities. Of an adult
whose emotional attachments remained
tenuous and fraught with controlling
spite, ultimately severing all intimacies.

And there we were, in the background,
quietly helping to pick together the
fragile remnants. And here we are,
yourself now mother of a young girl
emerging into early adulthood, and you
possess her, inserting yourself into her
pride of self, autonomy of thought and
action, finding fault where none exists.

We despair. Fearful for your teetering
balance of mind and incendiary thought.
You hiss your disdain of us, though
need is absent, for we cower under your
withering voice. We anguish for our
grandchild, and dread our fear of the
future. What more can we possibly do?

On This Spring Day

It is, this most pleasant of days,
a gentle wind that ruffles the
new green leaves festooning
spring trees. There are mayflies
and butterflies, newly emerged
to take up their spring-time role
in this annual re-acquaintance.

This day of mellowed atmosphere
now clear, now cloudy, but nicely
normalizing beyond the wintry
resurgence of a mere few days
earlier, has brought comfort to
all living things in nature's purview.

A pee-wee sheltered in a tree
calls himself time and yet melodious
time again. The forest paths, so
latterly dusted with snow from
flurries that raged under a bitter
wind, now appear bright orange,
well littered by fallen pine needles
representing nature's disposal
of the old, making way for the new.

A hawk shrieks, its sharp hunting
cries punctuating the calm, still
of the day. The woodland bracken
quickens, hawkweed begin to raise
their orange heads. Dogwood have
matured their floral panicles.
Dog-tooth violets on the wane,
yet trilliums flag their defiance and
Jacks still furtively claim presence.

Risk Management

What the hell? The guy’s an absolute moron!

If her professional, highly technical, experienced guidance is as crucial to the program as they’re telling her, instructing her to no-fail appearances at scheduled high-echelon meetings extending into the next six months, and her contract runs out in two weeks, and she’s been informed no funding for extension exists, they’re all village idiots.

“No”, she responded stiffly, wondering how it might be even remotely possible she thought at one time that he was halfway intelligent.

Surprised heads were raised to gaze cryptically at her defiant, yet resigned tone. So unlike her usual brash confidence. “I will not be attending.”

Incompetent assholes, she fumed inwardly more than adequately belying her calm exterior. Can’t tell their own from a hole in the ground. And that hole in the ground was just where she found herself now, floundering without any immediate job prospects, despite her acknowledged professional skills and experience.

Really lucked into that great lottery of life for certain, she thought.

It wasn’t just this, this incident with a well-remunerated contract evaporating. There was more, much more going on in her life that wasn’t joy-inducing. Such is life. And such was her life. Choices, all about choices. And she’d made some really amazing ones. Always certain, at the time she made those choices that they were the right ones. And it’s possible they were the right ones, at that time.

They just didn’t turn out to be anything to celebrate, over time, when those choices more or less fell flat. Leaving her to pick up the sorry pieces, wondering what on Earth had ever compelled her to think that she knew what she was doing when making those choices at those decision-making times.

Who even knows where Jack is now? For that matter who gives a damn?

Well, Steven likely does. He speaks about his father occasionally, less so now than he used to when he was young. Funny thing, that; Jack left before Steven was old enough to understand what a father represented. Still, even as an infant, even when things started going awry, she clearly recalled the child clinging to the man. Resistant to being handed back to his mother by his impatient father who didn’t relish holding his son.

It was his restlessness that had attracted her to him to begin with. She thought it was so romantic, his curiosity about the world, about going places, talking about where he’d been. Turned out he hadn’t been anywhere other than in his fertile imagination. He just wanted to be there.

Where? Anywhere but where he was. He was possessed of a fierce longing to go, just go, leave behind whatever it was that kept him from seeing the world. She often wondered why he settled down to the conventional notions of companionship, marriage, a home and a child. She was glad that he had, but wondered about it. Casually, she wondered, never digging deep into the question that always hovered in her mind. It was as though she deliberately kept herself from delving a little deeper, in case she found an answer that would upset her neat little world that then represented their lives together.

He hadn’t left her to wonder too long. Becoming increasingly edgy and short-tempered, she understood without his spelling it out that she had become a burden to him. The love they thought they had for one another? A stupid illusion, nothing more. It was fun, it was sex, it was attractive for a while, and then it all waned and got stale and became burdensome and boring. Just in time to see the birth of their son.

He gave it a few more months, struggled with his incurable wanderlust, and left. Just left. No note. She understood, though what had occurred. She was left behind, abandoned by someone she persuaded herself to believe she knew. What she had known was a hollow shell with an attractive exterior. She resented his abandonment of her and their baby. But she knew too that she had never realistically considered who and what she was complicating her life with.

History now, but no more readily accepted. That burning, irritated feeling of having been left behind, of rejection was never forgotten. Especially with Steven around to keep it alive. He resembled his father in so many ways. So much for imprinting through observation and emulation - patterning didn't they call it? Well, he could not possibly have absorbed anything about his father in the brief time he knew him; it was his inherited DNA.

Sure, it was his age, that too, but there was an underlying recklessness, and restlessness that elbowed her awareness into recognition of his parentage on the lance side. He bore little resemblance to her side of the family physically, and certainly none that she could recognize in his personality. His character was that of his father’s.

She had no idea what his grandfather was like, Jack was close-mouthed other than to tell her early on in their relationship that his father been an abusively miserable sod of a man, and his mother a screeching hellion. He had nothing to add to that, and since she knew he never bothered about them, satisfied with complete estrangement, she'd let it lie. She did wonder, though, if her errant husband had worried about whether he would become an abusive father to their son, if he remained with them. Then dismissed the thought; he was just simply disinterested in being a father, a husband, being tied down.

Not that things were any cosier between her and her siblings. Parents gone, long buried. Sibling rivalry between them translated into distance and disinterest. Although they did get together at least once a year, a huge family get-together. It was like meeting with the neighbours who lived far down the street, the ones you knew to acknowledge by a dip of the head, a brief ‘hi’, and that was it. There was no depth to their familial relationship, handily reflecting the lack of curiosity, one about the other.

And here was her kid, her only child, an unruly boy - young man really - who threw her for a loop. She hardly knew what to do with him. He hated school and his school marks and the remarks on his report cards, validated that. She’d tried to encourage him, help with his homework, but he resisted her involvement in his schoolwork, and just curtly informed her to leave him alone, he’d manage on his own.

He did, actually, he struggled on, convinced all his teachers hated him, were out to get him, but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction or the opportunity. He ran with a group of boys whose nonchalant attitude to school, to social mores and relationships reflected his own, more or less. She was familiar with the faces, with some of the names, and certainly with the attitude.

She'd had it out with him time and again. She was relentless, coming at him with determination, to try to get him to recognize that his association with those others whose circumstances were far less than his would only lead him into trouble. He, at least, she said, had been given some valuable instruction at home, he knew the difference between what could be done and what shouldn't be done. Vague, but he knew pretty well what she meant. Some of his friends had been brought in for petty theft, for reckless driving, for driving while under the influence.

He came right back at her, telling her she was deluded if she thought the way he was brought up was in any way superior to that of his friends. Most of them, he reminded her, had both a mother and a father. True, they didn't have the disposable income his mother managed to earn, but they did all right. They had their values to hand on their kids. They were just being young and carefree, into doing things that stretched the limits of society's acceptance. Most young men did just that, he said, furious with her. Angry because he had no intention of dropping his friends, telling her they were more genuine than the kind of guys she probably hung out with when she was young. His father, for example, he hissed at her, who couldn't stick around long enough to see his own kid grow up.

"So don't give me any more of that shit!" he called after her, as she left the room. Doing so, because she wanted to contain her emotions, wanted to make sure she exercised some decent restraint. Didn't act the fishwife with him the way her husband had described his mother doing to him.

Once he had his high school diploma, she thought he’d think twice about going on to post-secondary, but he thought three times, and the third time was the final one. He got himself a service job and just hung around with his friends, all of them locked into minimum-wage jobs. Spending whatever they made on booze and good times. She began to get on his case, and he said he’d had enough and prepared to move out, to share an apartment downtown with some of his friends.

Nothing she could do about it. And she needed a break from him anyway. The last time an OPP officer drove into their driveway, knocking at the door, asking to speak with Steven, she felt she just wasn’t up to taking it any more. Nothing serious, just checking. He’d been found in possession of more pot than any one person could use, in that Honda she gave him when she bought a new one. This cop had a habit of stopping him on the road sometimes, just checking… He’d earned a local reputation. Even in the little backwater where she’d had her dream house built, a half-hour drive out of the city.

She would shrink inside, in an agony of disquietude when she heard Steve and a few of his friends laughing about that law enforcement officer. They called him "Kamikaze" because of his appearance, wouldn't take him seriously, thought he was an absolute gas. The man was short, stocky, with an impassive face, though he made an effort to smile, apologetically, each time he knocked at the door and she would answer.

He had confided to her that it was his opinion that her son would come around, and so likely would the other boys. He was convinced that his constant presence would act as a reminder to them, and they'd outgrow their fascination with the illicit. He knew, he laughed once when speaking with her, how he was regarded by them, as though he represented an absurd caricature. He didn't mind that, he was used to it. He wanted to spare them, if his pop-up appearances did the trick, of thinking they could commit more serious infractions, unnoticed by the law.

She appreciated his frank explanations. She appreciated that he cared. She thought what a decent man he was, so different from so many of the others. And how difficult it must be for him, a Japanese-Canadian whose presence was anything but commanding, even in that official uniform, to lay down the law. That her son and his friends had no respect for him and what he represented pained her.

That was another contentious issue between them. Steve just couldn't believe she was angry about that. What was the cop to her? Did she care more about the tender feelings of some ridiculous-looking, hard-boiled law-enforcement officer than she did about him? What the hell?!

That had been the occasion of a really incendiary battle. This time she hadn't stalked out of the room, she stood there, reminding him that some decent man cared enough about the welfare of kids like him to put himself out on their behalf, even while knowing they despised him and held him in contempt for doing his job.

Their argument became so heated that at one point she shoved him backward, onto the sofa. He bounded back, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, painfully, until she thought her neck might snap. He was a full head and a half taller than her. That little episode sobered her.

So he moved out, and she got a pair of little dogs to keep her company. Two small Shih Tzu; hairy, yappy little dogs. But she grew to appreciate having them around. At least they were warm and alive, and liked her. Glad when she arrived back home, their fat little bums wriggling from side to side, yapping, endlessly yapping. See squirrels out of her big picture windows, and they’d go into a paroxysm of hysterical yapping. But they were company.

When Steven saw them on his occasional visits - mostly to ask her for money - he’d been intrigued at their presence. Next thing she knew, he told her over the telephone that he’d got a little dog himself, a boxer. It wouldn’t be little very long, she told him.

But while it was, Steve and his friends were having a good time with the dog. Good time? She discovered later, that they took turns slamming it against the concrete wall of the apartment garage just for laughs. When he told her that she was horrified, and told him he was an idiot, no one should abuse an animal like that.

“Hey, Mom, get a grip” he said, clearly amused. “We’re just showing the dog who the alphas are. See, he’s a stubborn little bugger, and when he doesn’t do as he’s told, that’s his punishment. He’ll get the picture, eventually.” He never did.

When Steven moved back in with her after a year ‘on his own’ - tossed out as bad tenants, him and his buddies - he brought Buddy home with him. Buddy walked in as though he owned the place; nothing insecure about that dog, she thought.

And then she screamed, as he lunged at one of her little dogs, closed his big mouth around the small animal, and shook it from side to side, her little dog yelping horribly. Steven kicked his dog, hard, and her little dog fell to the floor, stunned. That was their introduction.

She wanted him to leave, she was hysterical with anger and fear. “Got nowhere to go, right now, Mom”, he said, reasonably enough.

“Well, then just get rid of that monster! I can’t have it here, it’ll end up killing my dogs!”

“Hey, that’s all right, Mom”, he said, soothingly, holding the snarling boxer firmly around the studded collar on its thick neck, as it tried to strain itself toward her cowering dogs. “I’ll keep him outside, in the garage. He’ll get used to living in the garage. You won’t have to see him.”

The dog was clearly psychologically damaged, and little wonder. It had psychotic episodes, but for the most part it would appear mild tempered and playful and her heart went out to it.

She wondered, briefly, what was the matter with her. Investing her concern in animals, instead of worrying about her son. Then she acknowledged that worrying about her son, like wondering about her husband, accomplished nothing. Only time would, and she couldn’t guess what the outcome might be.

There were some things that just couldn’t be managed. Time would do the managing. She laughed bitterly to herself. That was, after all, her profession, risk management.

A Forlorn Season

In one of her irascible moods
of pending mischief, Nature has
snatched early spring from our
grasp and impishly returned us
to winter in an impulse to please
us, her dependent creatures.
Understanding fully, as she does
our woe at the unfortunate passing
of icy winds, snowy landscapes.

Gone now, the sun and its faithful
companion warmth, along with
the comfort of another season of
promises. We see again frost, a
decor we know well, that comes
replete with howling winds bringing
sleet and snow storms in that
abysmally dark season just past.

Past, you say? We become again
reclusive, cold, quivering beings,
loathe to so soon again face the
whipping winds that crease our
tender faces. To venture into that
miserable, frigid gale is to clasp to
one's bosom a viperous transition
born of true, natural malice.

Early spring flowers shrivel in
dismay. Birds fail in their trilling
dawn greetings, huddling within
tree branches, fluffing feathers
against bone-numbing cold. Those
tiny, exquisite summer residents
returning, are caught in the pitiable
fate of anxious hummingbirds.

Creatures of the forest hesitate,
curious and confused, so certain
were they of their collective memory
of raising young to an introduction
of mildly kind forbearance toward
those new of all species. They
withdraw, to wait out this inclemency.
And so too, of grim necessity, do we.

Dawn's Early Light

That great, dark reservoir in
the night-time sky lifted its hugely
ponderous gates to a flood of rain
pounding against the dimly-seen
landscape below. On the dawn's
early light the greenery glowed
luminescent - spurred to
advance its entry into summer.

In the woodlands, an abundance of
wild strawberries in bloom among
the early spring violets. Shafts of
sunlight shoot their rays upon the
crimson heads of trilliums. Jacks,
hiding their purple striped presence
under pulpits, pioneer their tribal
presence along watery tributaries.

The wild, mocking screech of a
Pileated woodpecker spreading its
wings wide upon the wind, its
scarlet head a flying mime, sounds
eerily against the clacking of treetops
with the low, urgent baritone of the
soughing wind roughing the arras.

Under the heart-shaped leaves of
wild ginger tiny hidden flowers
blithely bloom not distant from the
seasonal colonizing foamflowers
with their tiny white sprays of
frilly blooms among pale, yolk-
yellow woodland violets.

Changing Time

Its prolonged, mute anguish at
the state of world affairs which
demanded to be broadcast ... its
acute disappointment with the
fallibility of the very creative
intelligence that gave it life,
exacted a heavy toll on our
wretched kitchen radio, upon
whose clarity we so depended.

To us, it seemed an inanimate
object we could animate at will.
Our silently obedient, then suddenly
verbose servant, delivering the
hourly news. An instrument not of
clever nature but of the clever
nature of our human minds.

Little did we imagine that this
mechanical-electrical dependent
might inherit some of the more
ignoble characteristics of those
who modelled it. Yet, there it was,
exhibiting symptoms of delusion,
paranoia, jealousy, domination.

A sad occurrence; it became bitter
that ill news continually issued
from its sad mouth, overhearing in
the process our condemnations of
world leaders. Our radio complained
and refused any such further
indignities imposed upon it by us.

The radio crackled and faded,
refused to stay on track, sullenly
closed itself down as a resource
dedicated to news delivery. Finally,
we pulled its plug, its eyes dimmed
and it achieved the solitude it sought.
It sat there, defiant of our need.

We, in dire need of news, replaced
our tired, frenzied old radio. A new
model sits now where old faithless
once did. Sleek and modern, it can
also play our classical music CDs.
Its sound is decidedly superior.

But we miss our crankily opinionated
radio of yore. Long did it serve us.
We find ourselves sighing with regret.
We miss not its piques of temper
but the clear notice on its elderly
face of accurate time; a requisite the
talented new radio, does not possess.