Generational Profiles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insistently, the telephone rings.
A frenzied cacophony of excited
communication loops from the
child's mouth to her grandmother's ear
in a blur of bubbling confidence:
"I'm laughing so hard my stomach hurts."

Tumbling word after giddy word.
Grandmother stifling that impulse
to commiserate, enquire whether
child has had her daily movement
signifying overall good health
as though it might likely appeal.

Out tumbles the diffused
incoherence of jollity, the nexus
a shared hypothesis of "what-ifs" with
another giddy friend, both
collapsing in convulsions of
appreciation at their cleverness.

Deference to their wit and wisdom
a testament to the tentative
uncertainties of approaching, yet
elusive maturity in adolescents
as yet devoted to light-headed
affirmations of self, alternating
with morose defences of same.

Condensed as "not my fault!"
that declaration of being hard done by
misunderstood, and treated unfairly.
A sad lament to which grandmother
is treated during these quotidian dialogues.
The decrepit and the delighted, the frail
and the robust, one hard of hearing
the other strong on cheering.

These conversations, initiated
by turn with petulant growls, bemoaning
oneself as victim; on the other hand as
brilliant over-achiever, in modest self
recognition. Take your pick; it's either
the piercing lilt of delight in the absurd
or the miserable pathos of self-pity
 

In the absence of justice as in "it's not fair!"
Naught but extremes, no median.
The language, syntax and imperatives
spoken by each remains forever foreign
one to the other. Confidence restored
by the closing argument: "Love you!"
Loving forbearance, above all. 

 

 

Creation, Time and Space

An imposing cathedral of

unparalleled beauty sheathed in

crystalline grandeur lifts its

imperious grace to the ceiling

of the sky velvet with approaching

night, a halo of moon and the

boldness of stars impassively

observing a landscape unlike

their own of frozen gases and

ancient minerals. The one below

with its living atmosphere

responds to the distance of its

sponsor-sun in a frigid pause

of the clamour of growing

things unlike the inert nothingness

of cold and distant space. This

most familiar place of time and

seasons, liveliness and curiosity

a highly specialized experiment

by nature in randomized creative

adventure. And so, her creations

look up and peer beyond the

darkness of the unknown, certain

of discovery and revelation.

 

 

 

On This Winter Day

 

 

When a wide blue sky towers over

a winter day extreme cold prevails

irrespective of the beaming sun's

filtered fingers illuminating the forest

canopy finding its way through the

network of naked branches to glance

piercingly off snow packed on the

forest floor, as opposed to the relative

mildness that prevails on a pewter sky

day, shielding the sun. On this day

the sun shone, casting long shadows

in mid-afternoon. On such days even

a slight breeze lifts and turns paper-thin

foliage stubbornly clinging on those

immature oak, beech and hornbeam

standing their place among the fir

pine and hemlock in this woodland

where days of snow events were

punctuated with freezing rain, tamping

down the snowpack to a hard crust.

Down in the valley of the forested

ravine migration-averse robins alight

by the steadily streaming creek in

their search for food, and somewhere

above, chatter chickadees and a lone

nuthatch, birds of the boreal forest.

 

 

It Was a Very ? Year

 

It Was a Very ? Year

 

The year I was born my parents greeted

their first-born child, with three more

to follow at substantial intervals, all

to an immigrant family living in pride and

poverty, escapees from racial bigotry

social and institutional violence seeing

no possible future for themselves where

they were born. It was, coincidentally the

year that Nazi Germany denied the 

League of Nation having any business

interfering in the way it treated Jews. In

that year of 1936 Britain's King George

died, making way for the ascension of

Edward VIII; Hitler opened the 4th

Winter Olympics; 4 million French workers

went on strike; racists almost beat Leon Blum

to death; the Hindenburg had its first test

flight; Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles

Jews were warned of arrest should they

attempt to vote; Italy, Austria and Hungary

signed the pact of Rome; Britain, the U.S.

and France signed a naval accord; Italy

firebombed Harar, Ethiopia; Arab

highwaymen near Nablus killed three Jews;

Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa;

General Francisco Franco began the

Spanish civil war; The "Nazi Games" of

the 11th Olympic games opened in Berlin;

Benito Mussolini celebrated his "axis"

with Nazi Germany; A British Royal 

Commission investigated the underlying 

cause of anti-Jewish riots which the Arab 

Higher Committee boycotted; Japan and

Nazi Germany signed the Anti-Komintern

pact; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia

Kazakhstan and Kirghistan joined the USSR;

Edward VIII abdicated for Wallis Warfield 

Simpson; and humble me was born.

 

 

One Damn Thing ...

 

Willingly, eagerly he lent himself and his

unrivalled medical expertise to a mission

few others would undertake, one that 

reflected his status in the world of science

as a microbiologist determined to study

and to discover, in a world of passive

agony how to relieve the deadly burden

of pathogenic infection hurtling lost souls

to death as viruses swept the world in

deadly transmissions of historical dimension.

The loss of colleagues to those same morbid

threats, the pain of witness to countless

and growing death counts, the strain of

challenging his medical brain to greater

effort, the wearying hours and endless grief

took its toll sparing his life while urging

relief in alcoholic pacification of misery.

High-functioning, he diagnosed himself as

an alcoholic still capable of high performance

directing with finesse and acuity the vital

work of a world-class laboratory tasked to

solve nature's most malign threats to human

existence. Alcohol in excess taking its

bodily toll, slowly lulling him toward certain

death, he lent himself to a new experiment

to wire his brain with electric impulses

lifting his appetite for alcohol, manageably

restoring his zest for life, grateful for the

opportunity to indulge in ordinary routines.

Still young, another lifetime before him 

acclaim resonating for past success and 

future viability as a lecturer still in demand

that future was abruptly cancelled. R.I.P.

 

 

As It Happens

 

Granted, he is a loathsomely grubby

human being whose exploits in every

endeavour both personal and business

are replete with blotches of greed and

unsavoury conduct, slathered with outright

contempt for others, all of which make of

him a most disagreeable man. Yet there

is the reality that this man has the 

approval of a great public enabling him

in his new guise as politician to ascend

the executive order of first among leaders

of the free world, a public act of trust and

disgust in the actions of those preceding

him in that exalted office. For all of

that it was an exercise in democracy

with unforeseen results yet for every

action there are consequential reactions.

Honour and respect the role of a citizenry

to elect to public office that individual

they deem in their collective wisdom to

exemplify qualities of leadership and

wise counsel. Or oppose his ascension

in the bitterest of partisan reproaches then

employ every conceivable method to

depose his rule and flout the Republic's

devotion to the people's right to select

their government. And flout it they did

in the process devoutly portraying the

man in terms beyond his countless faults

displaying their own wretched descent

into resentful blame absent due cause

as they chose to brandish entitlement to

besmirch constitutional rights in a pique

of rancorous fury that all indices of an

office well administered salvaged him.

 

 

Library of the Mind

 

Libraries are not merely storehouses

of knowledge and entertainment

for though they are that and more

much more, they are a universe of

wonders awaiting discovery, each

volume a star revolving about their

shelves awaiting the opportunity to

bring to the minds of the curious

worlds they may never have known

existed, through an alphabet of words

and expressions whose content and

sentiment open vast vistas of the

imagination, inviting the reader to

indulge their brains and invest their

time in a pursuit whose outcome is

pure pleasure reserved for leisure

hours of relaxation as you delve into

the experience and locations of those

you will never meet other than in the

pages of absorbing content. There is

nothing mysterious or arcane of the

hunger within awaiting satiation in a

library. The mystery is there, however

how it is possible that some may live

their incomplete lives never perusing

the live print of an absorbing book. In

the final analysis it is the omnivorous

reader whose mind becomes a library.