Just Desserts

Most of those who have laboured
diligently over the years succeeding in
amassing a personal fortune tend not to
spend lavishly and many among them
feel it becomes them to offer aid to
others in society through philanthropic
generosity hoping to improve society
in some way that appeals to them. By
no means is this a guarantee that those
whose fortune includes material and
liquid assets beyond the dreams of the
hopeful Everyman, but we know of those 
entrepreneurs whose vision has brought
 them unprecedented reward in wealth 
and for whom philanthropy speaks its 
voice of reasonable expectation. Exceptions 
abound in every human endeavour but 
often explanations as well, as when those 
whose penchant leans to embezzlement 
and succeeds likewise in amassing fortunes 
appear to have a tendency to rash and 
ostentatious splurging, their greed and 
their criminal minds fixated on availing 
themselves of illicit-funded bank accounts 
enabling them to acquire all the rewards
their imaginations spurred them to crime 
to achieve their end. And the end comes 
swiftly in outraged justice and with
a vengeance when their very visibility
and unaccountability betray their vision.

 

This Does Not Compute

 

It's possible, I imagine, that you're just
an unpleasant person, young man who
runs his bull mastiff and great Dane mix
through this public park deliberately
oblivious to the presence of others who
react in startled little nervous tics when
they're confronted and go into panic mode
when they're walking their own small dogs
on leash. Those large and powerful beasts
are nowhere in your sight-line so you must
imagine, rather than directly witness the
trepidation their presence brings. Perhaps 
you bear some amorphous grudge? Have 
an aversion to the presence of others? 
Enjoy the prospect of your dogs-at-loose 
galloping toward people and their dogs 
forcing them to react to a potential threat? 
The dogs are possibly no threat to anyone
for reality often belies appearances, but
they are persistent and not given to ambling
off elsewhere when their focus is fixed on
a trembling little dog begging its human
to lift it out of harm's way. And when the
dogs jostle one another their muscular
bodies come in too-close contact with
those of people, some elderly, on those
narrow pathways between the urban forest.
Bystanders happening by as others apply
themselves to extrication from the dogs'
presence, tend to take in the situation and
pick up speed as they rush by. And you
do eventually 'catch up' to your dogs'
antics, say nothing, do nothing and your
dogs follow, then once again streak ahead.

 

 

Constitutional

 

The only measure in which they are
opposites is their height, hers fully half
his. Otherwise they are each in their
elder years physical wisps an ambitious
wind might easily carry off into the wild
blue ether. They are so subdued in meek
character floating up there no sound
would be emitted from their protesting
lips, loathe to cause a fuss and draw
attention to their fanciful flight. Of late
the magnet of home tugs him close
while she maintains his abandoned
and familiar neighbourhood schedule
perambulating a circuit of streets her
pale insubstantial presence enormously
enhanced by the wind-and-cold protective
cocoon enveloping her. Her toddling
gait however betrays the inner presence
of a sensitive soul, the shyest of the shy
whose tentative smile matches the
tenor of her slight quavering voice, one
never quite comfortable with idle
albeit civil chat. Yet she is constrained
to halt her abortive steps to commune
with whoever happens to be there
with halting comments betraying her
insecurity determined to be unflinchingly
polite schooling herself to idle talk
as though to prove herself just like you
and another smile and a nod return
her to that shuffle back to him.

 

Prospecting

 

Uncompromisingly, respect for her must be
the basis for a sound intimate relationship 
she noted as her outstanding requirement for
any relations to succeed and when reminded 
that she often stated she had no respect for
the panoply of men whom she serially shared 
home and hearth with, she frostily asserted 
respect must be earned. Unsurprisingly there
are times when she moans that she desperately
needs to be cherished yet she treats love as a
disposable commodity. Logically it should
be men of high intelligence and good earning
potential she might be attracted to since she
is imbued with both qualities, yet she swiftly
responds to any man expressing desire
requiring no preliminaries nor the time to
evaluate his qualities before proffering her
own temporary commitment. Understandably
ill-suited by temperament to any suggestion
she could be dominated in turn -- her specialty
is domination resulting in those who acquiesce
ultimately being quickly shed, and those who
resist appealing to her sense of personal
challenge to be overcome; succeed or fail
the end result separation accompanied by
harsh condemnation and accusations of
intolerable abuse as she racks up a growing
inventory of grievances along with bitter
recriminations at the lack of worthy suitors.

 

 

Impudent Imposters

 

Although as a breed they are her ardent
admirers, gardeners in their absurd conceit
also consider themselves, though they are
mere emulators, nature's rivals. For nature
herself the challenge is non-existent to her
nonchalant expertise in nurturing life on
Earth. For gardeners the science of botany
and the excited pleasure of considering
themselves responsible through their
concentrated labour in coaxing a garden
to bloom leads them to the exhilarating
but innocently absurd conclusion that their
ministrations are wholly to account for the
luxuriant colour, texture, fragrance and
architecture of a garden so slight in its
indifferent scale not to be compared to the
wholesale grandeur of nature's accomplished
creations of geological splendour and
uncountable variety of life-forms some
of them self-contained and self-sustaining.
The micro-Edens so beloved of gardeners 
clinging to the illusion that their knowledge 
and efforts alone coaxed growing things 
to obey and preen their presence for the 
self-genuflecting delusion leading to the 
self-appointed role of garden steward
reflects the hubris of humans, yet another
creation of the great manipulator of matter
she alone designed and brought to existence. 

 

 

Paean To Progress

 

There, the deed is done legislatively
and recreational cannabis is now legal
in Canada, joining its sister-legality of
some duration in medical use of the drug.
A drug, yes, a psychotropic drug whose
measure of ruination throughout history
in all societies which it has graced has
been a nightmare of dysfunction and
death. But look at the optics here, the
very signature of the industry where
workers in these 'labs' producing vast
amounts of marijuana wear what else?
why white laboratory coats; see the
resemblance to the medical community
and if we trust hospitals and doctors with
the symbolic health of a nation, why not
perforce others wearing those badges of
trustworthiness, even if the motivation is
building a legitimate new industry whose
profits will be stupendous both for those
growing and purveying the stuff and for
governments permitting its social use
whose revenues will soar into the ether.
As for unintended consequences, well
reality is there are always misfortunes
and no one can be assured safety and
security measures will work in all and
sundry circumstances so youth's promise
can be cerebrally dulled, and infants can
be hospitalized with toxicity and the family
pet can be presented for resuscitation at
the nearby vet's, but a popular and much
vaunted perspective has been validated
freeing up peoples' self-consciousness to
another more relaxed dimension all thanks
to a man whose scruples and function
celebrate diversity and liberalizing progress 
Canada now distinguished, a stoned nation.

 

Garden Dirge

 

In spring the soil under my hands was
friable and warm from exposure to the
sun and gentle spring rains. The ritual of
soil preparation, the excitement felt with
the first burst of bright green spears
appearing overnight through that soil
and the expectation of more, ever more
revealing their underground presence in
an inexorable thrust as though perennials
were gleefully announcing, 'we're here!
remember us?' as though you could forget.
For weren't you the enabler, planting that
small beginning plant life when the garden
started its long career under your careful
ministration, uncertain at first, gaining
confidence as the garden itself did in its
steady maturation. Ah, spring and the
opportunity to set in motion yet another
summer-full of constant colour, texture
the kind of architecture that a gardener
fully appreciates as a work of art even
if, in the final analysis, it is the natural
order of vegetation to respond to wind,
sun and rain and would do so absent your
guiding hand. But this garden, this one
is your dream aspiring to reality, moving
from night to day in bloom and fragrant
presence. And then comes the time when
your hands are enmeshed in cold, wet
soil on the verge of frost when undertaking
the disassembly of that which nature
wrought with your sensitive aid has
initiated its retreat, and the floral
delights you planted have shrivelled
their lifecycle complete. Your garden toil
then is that of an undertaker sadly but
with resolve removing the dead and the
dying, soothing the soil as late fall
advances into winter and all is lost.