There are those who will
never understand your
grief the loss of a
presence dear to you
has caused, others for
whom your loss is
expressed in personal
relief that it is you
not they who have
been bereaved, and
yet others who tell you
to brace up and
recall the good things
and just accept the sad
reality of the inevitable.
And then there are those
whose uncompromised
compassion is a soothing
calm dispensing with words
in favour of a deep gaze
leading to the brief but
lasting harbour from
haunting pain deep
within the firm warmth
of an empathetic embrace.
The muse of literacy is not amused.
She is in fact beyond the state of bemused
quite beside herself in the face of the
unaware unwillingness of those who
embark upon that most common of shared
human expressions to exert themselves
not fastidiously, but deliberately and
with all due courtesy to language -- use
the words meant to convey their thoughts
and use them accurately, inclusive of the
specific order of the alphabet that identifies
those words, for the elegance of language
and communication demands no less.
I know all this and so would you if you
but heeded her rules through the simple
expedient of respect and admiration for
all that language allows. That which has
the effect of demeaning language in turn
identifies the abuser as one unworthy of
the gift of communication. A visual blight
and an assault on one's sensibilities when
a blissfully unaware mangler of prose
poses as one whose opinions are fraught
with meaning and substance, all flown off
in an embarrassment of sad association.
Quite the pair they are, the
large black-muscular dog loping
beside the laboured gait of the
man; an arresting sight in
contrasts. The man, his tall
but slight and angular form
bent toward the ground
proceeding carefully, the dog
proceeding with its attention
fully on the awkward progress
of its companion. The man's
smile slants across the landscape
of a face well acquainted with
suffering, wan and accepting.
His chest strangely concave
as though his maker, distracted
in the process of building his
body forgot half. Unlike the
large dog's deeply muscular
chest heavy with perceived
menace. Bred to inspire fear
the dog is herself fearful, shy
and meekly spooked, her human
companion gently reassuring
her, salving her terrorized
reaction to the unfamiliar.
Her needs motivate his
compassion, his familiarity
with accidents of fate equipping
him, her grateful reliance on
his guiding intervention
his assigned purpose in life.
I've become a celebrity
with my very own personal
following of black-clad PR
agents always on the alert
for my presence. When sighted
calls go out to others of my
admirers to gather and bask
in my very special presence.
When I exit my home the
black-uniformed sentries
spring into action sending
the alert and closely following
me. Several at first, then
a gathering dark storm steadily
arrive, haunting my footsteps,
watching carefully for sight
of the treasure they seek and
for which I am acclaimed.
The forest nearby my house
the venue where peanuts are
daily dispersed, the cache
spots known as well to the
furred wildlife, as to the
dense-feathered honour guard
seeking their daily fair fare.
The timeless, perplexing and
sublimely complex creation
that hums and thrums throughout
the Universe holds endless
fascination for those times
when our minds contemplate
the unknowable vastness and
diversity that surrounds us, in
everlasting space, dark and
teeming with celestial bodies
whose chemistry the brilliance
of a scientific mind deciphers
beyond the comfort of we
whose focus remains close at
hand, sighting about us the
wonder of ephemera, butterflies
and morning mist, spring peepers
and flowering vines, the fragrance
of favoured dishes, the flood of
memory bringing us to tears.
Our amazement that we were
born and out of fortune's sideways
glance we met to recognize our
future of shared thoughts, love
and tenderness, the care taken
in the duality of two becoming
as one, living our allotted time
given to a microscopic presence
within the great gyrating
wheel of the Universe.
It has been hundreds of thousands
of years in the making, far less
a social construct than truly a
distinct gender difference that
even early homo sapiens understood
for they were not (self)-named
'man-the-wise' for nothing. That
females gave birth and in so doing
the busy mother and the mewling
infant required support to survive
was simply acknowledging reality
of a kind amply recognized by all
animal species. Those biological
adaptations resulting in male and
female merely Nature's formula
for reproduction as the mistress of
existence fiddled with her archaic
architectural plans melding physics
chemistry and organisms in a
choreography of imperious design
to amuse her royal majesty, sole
witness and grand proprietress of
the dazzling, twisting Universe whose
infinite attention to scale and minute
detail alike inflicted upon Planet Earth
a species whose antics, emotions and
pathologies guaranteed her not one
wasted moment of suspense. Assuming
she endowed those females with so
many attributes not unlike her own
creation among them. The puzzle left
would be what she exampled the
male psyche upon in her fertile
imagination, laughing indulgently
as he created the idea of an all
powerful deity, just incidentally
in his very own humble image.
When our children were young
and adorably stubborn and their
parents adamant that they be
compliant in consuming the
nutritious food served them in
those proportions suitable for
young bodies to thrive, growing
healthy and robust, it took both
their parents' entreaties to convince
them their chiming complaints were
unjustified and unuseful to their
actual needs. Occasionally they
might relent and pick daintily at
the fish, liver or brassica offending
them on their dinner plates, even
on occasion lift a morsel to their
downward curling lips and manage
to gulp them down, with much
encouragement. Adults now, their
tastes encompass mostly what
they long ago spurned, while
those still offensive tastes are
banished. Alone, together at our
dinner table, it is I alone who
remonstrates on those occasions
when our children's father fails
to appreciate those same dinner
offerings rejected by our offspring
a sign of our less tumultuous times.
