The Urban Wilderness

 

 

It was a natural wilderness seldom

penetrated, a large, extended gash in

the earth, a thickly forested landscape

surrounded by farms on land long

settled and arable aside from the

resistant geology of the ravine. Urban

sprawl displaced the farms but nothing

could displace the ravine and the forest

and the water coursing through the ravine

floor. In that forest groundbirds flourished

alongside a panoply of large and small furry

creatures alongside predators both winged

and furred. As houses were built on the

ravine's perimeter migratory corridors

closed and deer became scarce though

more adaptable creatures remained

receptive to an extended food source

cadged from human waste. Residents of

nearby neighbourhoods valued the forest

as a recreational haven where dogs could be

free to spurt into the forest interior and

emerge exercised and happy. Foxes and

raccoons abounded alongside smaller fry

until the abundance of wildlife contracted

when coyotes adopted the habitat treasured

by all. Now, companion dogs' exquisitely

sensitive detection senses are on alert

quietly detecting the presence of alpha

predators bold enough to confront both

dogs and their walkers confident in their

natural rights in this still-wild haven.

 

 

Winter's Frozen Breath

 

Above, a wide, deep wash of blue.
Not a wisp of cloud to mar this
day's stunning perfection. This
was today's message to us.
Frigid temperatures reign
thanks to the absence of cloud
trapping scant winter heat below.

We are lashed by the icy fingers
of winds in high dudgeon,
knocking the heads of the
forest trees and slicing its fire
across our revealed flesh; eyes
weeping, foreheads frozen.

Dried flower stalks bow in
humble homage to the
insistent, imperious wind.
Gossamer veils of snow
languorously part from
laden spruce boughs.

Oblivious, in their winter
element, the minuscule, dainty
black, grey and white shapes
of chickadees flit from branch
to branch, calling their delight
with their environment.

The creek running through
our Ontario wooded ravine in
this Ottawa Valley is frozen fast,
its glaring surface reflecting
the sun's serendipitous presence
as we lope along snow-padded trails.

We have company this day;
silent, elongated, gracefully
following, then leading us forward.
Our shadows step lively, unaffected
by the chill, the ferocity of wind.
Brought to life by the sun's
life-affirming presence.

 

 

Eugenics

 

So many times
we passed that place
knowing it was there
not really caring
          then

in young manhood
you draped your bones
on the pristine sheet
of the cagesided bed
and we hovered
in anguished disbelief

saw through a mist
a lifeline pierce
your transparent wrist
           and
the steady drop
transfixed us

this was reality.

Gently the doctor probed
your beloved frame
our foggy memories
for family history
and we waited release
from the dreadful error.

      Now every day
life sustaining injections
balance your present
consolidate your future. Now
every day we note
your altered need
vital dependence.

Daily we tread
a quicksand
in shades of fear and hope
    reading you
like a barometer.

My Daughter My Stranger

 

There was a time not long ago

    (only a year in fact)

When she hated everyone else's

poison wafting her way. She used

to say cigarettes are dangerous.

Even tried to persuade her friends. 

 

We always had a good understanding

me and my daughter. She has a

     talent for the flute

     and this summer I bought her

a piccolo. Her favourite record

 

was Cimeros's double-flute

     concerto. Her needle-adept fingers

sewed embroideries far finer than

     my young fingers ever did.

This year she's a senior. 

 

She's embroidered a joint

     its smoke spiralling up the

     leg of her faded jeans. Our

house rocks with Alice Cooper's

ghastly lyrics. Every evening now

 

she's out back in the park

     behind our house, here in this

middle-class hamlet. A crowd of

boys and girls. Music blares the

     autumn air. Matches flare the dark

 

to light the weeds. She's high.

     (she gets  high on crowds

          and popularity.)

 'Everyone thinks I'm a stoner'

she tells me laughing. 'It's

my clothes     my fuzzy hair

 

         and the way I  talk.' My

daughter has learned. She knows

how to disarm my wary thoughts. Now

my neighbour with the sniffing nose

     tells her neighbours that my daughter

 

is a bad influence on theirs. I

remember her own daughter. Her way

was tight-lipped with the girl

          and high-voiced.

She always said the reason her girl

 

ran wild was because the girl was

adopted. Never can trust strange genes. 

 

 

Disarmament

 

Did you know

that the Sea Cucumber

to deflect a pursuer

can regurgitate

its stomach?

 

And did you know that

female monkeys 

to appease belligerent

males turn backside up

in coy invitation?

 

In this way has nature

armed the otherwise

defenceless.

 

Did  you know

the Sea Cucumber

grows a new stomach

and survives. The

monkey raises the

 

fruit of her

propitiatory act.

And did you know

that when you

thunder through the

 

peace of my

existence I offer

myself to

placate the beast.

 

Nature has prepared us

to meet each other.

Did  you know

I am armed with love? 

 

 

Thy Brother's Keeper

 

They are everywhere, in impoverished

countries whose cities strain with mass

humanity and in countries of the wealthy

developed world where technology and

industry has created immense wealth yet

they roam the streets, eat in the streets

sleep on the streets, under highway bridges

and passes, fall in love, become violent 

with one another and bystanders alike

peddle and use drugs and die in the streets

the growing army of the homeless, named 

by polite society, the 'unhoused'. Transient

lives of gross humanity whom misfortune

has led astray and whom the settled and 

the fortunate regard with empathy until

they approach too intimately and suddenly

appear threatening, though some can be

since they suffer from mental illness and

who can predict when that psychosis will

spark into rage and claim a hapless victim?

They become the enemy of good order

their misfortunes failing to excite the

sympathy their conditions demand when

funding and good intentions fail to serve

their needs and relieve society of their

oppressive, guilt-inducing, angry presence.

 

 

Lightening Up

 

They burden the world with their tedious

presence and with a litany of faults so

numerous they are inexhaustible, far too

many to count and in their aggregate account

for the disdain in which they are held and 

always have been, for who among the world's

inhabitants wishes to live among people so

cunning and forever scheming that there can 

be no peace, no rest from concerns that the

world may soon succumb to the plots they

conceive and strive to achieve to the known

detriment of all others. Yet the most irritating

aspect of having them live alongside others 

is habitual whining of being discriminated 

against as though their manner doesn't invite

just that very thing. For they have no sense of

humour, none whatever, and among their

many other faults is their unforgiving sour

sense of entitlement that slights never come

their way, even when those they accuse of 

the age-old bugbear of anti-Semitism inform

them that the messages they take to be racist

are merely attempts at humour and they really

should you know, make an effort to lighten up.