Always a Bridesmaid

 

The essential dynamics of human trust

are elemental; sincerity, truthfulness and

open communication. Rare qualities to be

sure when two groups face one another in

an irresolvable struggle where one speaks

of inheritance while the other accuses those

of timeless existence in the disputed area of

being interlopers, false claimants to land

contestants intend to share with none other

than their own. The wisdom of Solomon 

put to the test judging whom between them

proffers the more valid argument when it is

an ancient temple dedicated to the almighty

which his era and his order established. Yet

his successors in the land of Judea where

his descendants have never failed to worship

and till the land welcoming an ingathering

diaspora's return are violently assailed by

challengers to a dry and history-dusted land

transformed by their enterprise to verdant

productively arable orchards, yet must turn

their ploughshares to military defence against

counter-claimants adamantly resistant to the

peoples' presence in a land of their own. So

frequently have the offers of apportioning and

friendship been refused the bridegroom is no

longer invested in cohabitation with the

sullen bride, left to bitterly call upon her

extended family to destroy the home that 

might, with earned trust, have been her own.

 

 

Bored, Are You?

 

Just so sick and tired of it all, predictable

and unexciting, all the promise in life

doled out to others with half your talent

and personality and it's just so bloody

infuriating. Well, there's this: for quality

excitement, imagine living in a country

whose dictator has spent years bombing

the hell out of people who don't appreciate

his rule. And then there's the suspense of

living in a tiny country surrounded by

other nations prepared to do just about

anything to destroy you and yours aided

and abetted by paramilitaries for whom

there are no rules not meant to be broken.

Right, you skate like the devil and get

that puck past any goalie and on a soccer

field you're the guy to watch. Your charisma

attracts women like monkeys to bananas

but they're not the elite brand and you're

sick of them. You can't afford the thrill

of climbing the Himalayas, much less 

passage to the moon or a trip to see the

melting glaciers on Antarctica. You haven't

experienced a tornado, a tsunami, a flood

volcanic eruption or earthquake. Life

could be a blast, but for you it's a bust and

the best you can hope for is secluding

yourself with video games emulating

war and natural catastrophes but it's just

not good enough and you rage revenge

on life, so who needs it? Life was all so

different in the good old days of pillage

and conquest and rape and destruction, so

much to live for. So, furtively, off you go.

 

 

Here In Spirit

 

You are gone, but your indomitable spirit

defying even the Angel of Death lives on.

Unbidden, memories of you visit us daily.

Your loss and our grief daily replenished in

snapshots of your loving and beloved

presence in our lives. Your brother recalls

your being there yet knows you are now not. 

There is nothing, no one that can replace

you in our hearts, though yours stopped

beating through the daily cadence of our 

lives together sharing the joys and all the

tribulations that life brings for all too short

a time. Little did we realize in the moment

when we took such anxious care to shield

you from the vagaries of life's unexpected

threats that the most implacable enemy of

life would nonetheless enter at the time and

place of his greatest advantage taking you

from us. Time's essence has not mitigated

our loss and your memories do not yet 

compensate for your abrupt departure.

  

Nature's Landscape

 

Nature's unrivalled genius lies not only 

in the unfathomable depth and breadth 

of her invention through timeless creation 

but the minutiae of the complex interrelations

each of her creations are imbued with, an

endless chain of existence interdependent and

exquisitely graceful and it is with gratitude

that her creatures observe the immensity of 

the landscape she has provided for practical 

and aesthetic sustenance. The most minor

of her creations of no less importance than 

those whose heightened awareness conceits

their sense of consequential primacy. The 

forest is a monochromatic landscape of 

black and white in its winter guise; its floor

steeped deep in snow, its trees dark and gaunt

its diurnal creatures stirring at dawn, the 

night-haunting raptors and four-legged 

stealth predators retiring at daybreak. Above 

the canopy an expanse of blue invites high 

flyers while woodpeckers cleanse tall old 

sentry hosts of larvae. Nuthatches and 

companion chickadees flutter here and there

while small furred creatures assiduously

search out seeds; their aquatic counterparts

shelter under icy streams that meander 

through the forest. The setting sun casts 

fiery fingers lighting the tallest of the forest 

trees until dusk arrives and night falls.

 

 

Irrepressible Malcontents

 

Yowling and howling with the wretched

injustice of it all, these tender flakes

of humanity represent an anomaly

where it has become evident they have

failed the test of social maturity, content

as they are, determined as they are to

remain malcontented juveniles forever.

Like children everywhere who seek to

possess what they see others have

and they not, quick to claim their

rightful ownership of all they covet

scornful at suggestions of civility and

the possibility of sharing so that others'

needs too can be accommodated. For

each and every potential solution to their

pouting pique they dissent with rage

then resort to violence reflecting their

reasoning that if they cannot obtain the

objects of their desire then no one shall

and those who occupy their desire must

pay the penance of death at the hands of

the aggrieved. They have lost the sympathy

of onlookers, the support of nearest kin

for their unreconstructed incorrigibility

has wearied all but themselves, left now

to their usual devices of demonic rage

for their unfulfilled aspirational tyranny

expressed in murderous defiance of

the merest scintilla of human decency.

 

Waiting...

 

With the limitless patience of the faithful

they wait, imperturbably confident and

assured, the seers and the shamans, the

yogis, the sufis and the swamis, near

Chichen Itza.  Their followers worldwide

besotted with the spiritual chill of the

unknowable void of being will settle for

alternates.  Awaiting the spirals of

heavenly light promised to invade the heads

of believers, from their vast galactic journey

they weep in fear and joy.  A cosmic dawn

arrives to gift the worthy with telepathy and

they will loose themselves from the

niggardly magnetic bonds of Earth, to

levitate and flee its constricting confines

set to implode.  Electrical vortexes

arrived from the galaxy's centre bid them

hither and they will respond, leaving fear

embracing love, bathed in the light of

transformative cleansing of the soul.  For

they have discovered true salvation, fleeing

the stagnating brutal influence of life as

we think we know it.  That is the revelation

the cataclysmic upheaval that engages 

humanity, at one with the golden light

of divine forgiveness, an arcane alchemy 

of  life bypassing death, the final frontier

to incandescent longevity.  If not immortality

then why not?  Thirteen and counting.

Look...at us, at them, the pathetic ones --

quivering with the misery of unrequited life.

 

 

Viral Pandemic

 

It lurks, an unsuspected menace

patiently awaiting opportunity

for this pathogen is a rapacious threat

its endurance and communicability

a fearsome feat of nature's strange

random endowments to her creatures

both minuscule and gargantuan

whether harmless or endowed with an

appetite to consume other life forms

on the path to realizing its dedicated

existence. From its original host

patiently waiting ... waiting ...

then striking and striking again

and yet again ... its unqualified

malevolence striking terror into

the minds of observers whose

medical training informs them of

its potential as a raving and present

risk to survival of its hapless

victims, sending the clarion call

of enhanced vigilance and urgent

calls to isolate and examine its very

nature the better to arm themselves

with a discovery capable of disarming

the beast's intention of calamitous

global destruction of humanity.