Intermission

 

 

Stacked billowing clouds, sooty understoried
and luminous silver above, are driven
relentlessly through the deep cauldron of
the roiling sky. Finally the rain punctuating
the quiet stillness of late autumn has come to
a relieving halt. A murder of crows hurl
hoarse invective, tangling the humid
atmosphere with sodden ebony wings.

The gnarled old pine trees drip incessantly
as though consumed by an unassuagable
grief. They have no reason to mourn, for
this year they have produced a vast
abundance of cones. It is the absence of
pomegranate-bright candles on autumn
sumacs that confuses the ritualized display
of nature's fecund purpose this season.

The foot of an elderly yellow birch glows
fiercely fluorescent-green, the moss freshly
washed and strangely, vividly illuminated
in the wanly eerie light. Over the mud-rich
waters of the ravine lingers a veil of mist,
and the sharp odour of swamp gas. The
screech of a hawk circling above penetrates
the softly serene silence of the afternoon.

The conspiracy between the ravening wind
determined in its powerful mastery over all
other climatic elements offers the waiting
sun a brief reprieve from obscurity. Suddenly,
warmth floods the environment and a softly
golden sheen is painted on the glossy trunks of
poplars and birch, revealing the nuanced
richness of the perfectly drenched arras. 

 

Generations

 

She remembers, when she was young

her time her mother bustling her off to
the distant home of an acquaintance
whose house seemed so unlike the sparse
rooms her parents rented. A girl was
there, older, aloof, whose cast-offs
would be hers. Not, as they say now, gently
used, but yet serviceable without the
undeniable charms of newness.

She recalls hobbling to school in vulgar,
broken footwear, for that was all she had.
She remembers the flush of shame and
her furtive, envious glances at the attire of
her classmates, and dreaming of the luxury
of "new", and first-owned and personal choice.

As a young mother with economic restraints
she clad her children carefully as their
budget permitted. Making certain they
would feel no hesitation of inferiority in their
social atmosphere. Where she, living in poverty
made no complaints, her children were given
to matching their peers' tastes and selections
and she was introduced to the quaint
terminology and reality of peer pressure.

With her grandchild now aged as she was
herself at the advent of her first factory job at
thirteen, nothing is denied. She is aghast at
the casual, thoughtless entitlements. Yet
money no longer scarce, the girl's every desire
is promptly fulfilled. New name-brand
garments, for the others, not yet outgrown
are simply "ugly". New cell phone for the other
is "chipped" and no longer desirable; not in
style, nor reflective of the latest technology.

As for her, she assembles her wardrobe
now she can afford anything she desires
finally, at second-hand shops where the
fashion cognoscenti knowingly converge. 

 

 

Once Again To the Breach!

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending steam of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership?

 

The Wind's Domain

 

Benign as the ceiling of this world appears
this day, with luminous streaks of clouds
so brilliantly flamed silver by the early
afternoon sun, there is no warmth in the
atmosphere and no escape from the bellowing
wind that rudely abrades everything it
touches with its belligerent presumption.

The carbon-icy probes of the wind rage
its sovereignty over all living things
inspiring a cowering terror the small
furred creatures of the forest well recall
as a partner to winter. Even the crows
avoid its ferocity, abstaining flight for
hunched, darkly sinister perches.

The colossal old beech is unmoved
while all about it, trees of far newer vintage
wave and weave about in surrender to the
wind's merciless aggression. It stands,
that venerable beech, still and dominant
like a placid pachyderm patriarch.

Where once a grape vine grew on its
lower limbs in graceful symbiotic accord
flourished, producing sourly mean fruit
those limbs of the beech long since assumed
a curtsy to their companionship, though the
gnarled old vine has since decayed into
nothingness; the host recalls its tenant.

A gathering litter of dry leaves, needles
twigs and branches descend as helpless victims
to the dictate of the wind, leaving the trees intact
but for those prepared by time and disease to
split and topple, cracking the air with their
torment. The mud-turgid water of the forest
creeks usher along new-fallen offerings to
generously augment the rich forest aggregate. 

 

The Inner Self

 

Life is a difficult passage - from childhood
curiosity, stimulation and growing aspirations
to the development of memory, experience,
regret and profound concerns and finally,
disappointments. We are singularly fortunate
when the serendipity of personal fortune
outweighs the overlapping misfortunes that
are met and dealt with on our life-journey.

It is incumbent upon us all, in reflection of
the finer emotions we are gifted with, to care.
The manner in which we express that care, on
every conceivable level, identifies us as
individuals. When caring becomes an intolerable
burden that makes a misery of our lives, there
is a useful human antidote: humour.

There is no situation, however stressful and unhappy
in its dark bleakness that does not hint at humour
for even humour can have its grim edge, lifting
us from submission to despair. Before we
stretch the tether of emotional balance to its
snapping point, humour beckons to be heeded.

A lighter mood has its own perspective, capable
of reflecting hope and deliverance from the
destitution of lonely, devastating destruction of
confidence in the future. Where there is no hope,
there is no future. Where there is not future, there
is no reason to prolong life. The imperative is to
steer in the direction of life and the future. One
where the light of hope and comedic relief from
life's stressors liberate us from rejecting ourselves.

We can laugh and find humour everywhere; light
and carefree, or mercilessly dark. But humour
withal. Transient but renewable, sturdily useful
enrapturing at times, insightful and mind-directing
it may become a tool of choice in our enduring
free-choice subliminal quiver of survivalist options.

 

 

The Heart Is The Matter

It is a public space, after all. A place, you see
where people are gathered when suddenly -
or chronically - their bodies stutter, halt
in their normal, mechanistic routines. A
place where health professionals, groomed
and expertly schooled to differentiate, to
diagnose and to offer and effect amelioration
are stationed within the labyrinthine confines
of old piles of steel, concrete and brick.

Naked curiosity follows me unabashedly
defying anonymity while utilizing it to
advantage. Vetting my social status through
my dress code, evaluating my obvious age and
most evident physical appearance against the
possibilities of my afflictions. The mystery
cannot be too deep for this is the cardiology
waiting room and a technician bids me to a
nearby chamber for a pre-appointment
cardiogram. Unneeded, for I have so recently
been more than adequately screened.

But my name revealed and the clues
gathering, the men and women seated there
in pairs and singly, young and of middle age
elderly and decrepit, are alert to any and all
revelations to lighten the boredom of the wait
and their burdensome self-concern. The
television screen, mounted high in a corner,
captures most swivelling eyes, but not the minds
behind them. Few opt to ease the wait by reading,
but The Economist is well worth the effort.

From the corridors, purposeful footsteps,
voices raised in querulous conversation; no one's
favourite ambiance. No sharp odours of
disinfectants detectable in this wing of this
campus of this municipal hospital serving over
one million citizens. Outside the windows, the
sky is hooded with brightly beaming clouds. A
sneak preview of late autumn sun glances briefly
through a slit in the contiguity of the clouds.
There will be far more to this unassuming
day than the current landscape assumes. 

 

Breaking News

 

Brilliant sunshine streams through the
windows of our breakfast room as we take
our leisurely breakfast. Though it is crisply
cold out, our little dog's preferred spot
these late autumn days, is the wood deck
seated happily within the radiant ambiance
of a perfectly cloudless porcelain sky.

This brief reprieve from winter's onset
coddles us with a sense of nature's favour
and we immerse ourselves in the pleasures
derived from such leisure, inviting yet
another cup of coffee for him, tea for me.
Flying through the sun-kissed-green branches
of the backyard spruce, a small flock of
purple finches, their sibilant chorus
perfecting the priceless atmosphere.

As we murmur contentment with this
breaking day, breaking our overnight fast,
we consume also the breaking news of the day.
Radio newscast, augmented and magnified
by print reports in full from the day previous.
And we read of peacekeepers killed in Congo,
humanitarian aid workers abducted and
murdered in Afghanistan, cholera in Haiti,
church bombings in Iraq, priests and
parishioners - all mercilessly slaughtered.

And we are given pause in the breaking of
this day. This is our day, not to be confused
or conflated in any measure with the tragedies
unfolding elsewhere in the world. Our country
does not sentence a mother of five to death
for her crime of giving insult to the Prophet.
Our country has sentenced a mother of two
infants to 25 years of remorse for destroying
her children in a mad fit of ownership,
denying their grieving father custody.