It's a Dog's Life

 

 

A cursory glance identifies them as twins

and they definitely are look-alikes though

brother and sister, litter-mates of a litter

of two though large for their breed and

it's a mystery how a toy sire and dam

mated to produce our little treasures. We

know them as others do not and though

they may be 'cute' they bedevil us by

their unerring propensity to frustrate

though there is no lack of intelligence

to offset the wilfulness. As male and

female they exemplify the very real

variances in the sexes, both physically

socially and gender-behavioured. She is

most decidedly feminine, serene and

confident, assertive and cunning. She is

also designed by nature shorter, plumper

far less sleek than her brother who is taller

muscular and given to displaying male

tendencies of aggression. Between them

she is the leader, he the follower. She will

eat anything, he will spurn what fails to

impress though his appetite is restored

when confronted with sticks and aged dog

leavings. All well and good but what now

I find disturbing is that I discover a direct

parallel between their temperaments as

gender-varied as they are, and those of the

two who care for them, he and I, both like

them having lived together for a dog's age

each of us taking on the appearance of the

other as though the litters that introduced us

to the world were little different than theirs.

 

 

The Silence of Snow

 

Wind spurts fierce thrusts compelling
the snow to drift languidly and
mound into voluptuous landscapes
while evergreen boughs heavy
with snow release great clumps
themselves springing to height.

Lazy clouds of snow drizzle
the landscape. Falling clumps freckling
the grey sky, shifting clouds to
pleasure the insistent sun. Shafts
of light haze through the forest,
firing the snow to silver crystals.

Through the soft and gentle
stillness, the staccato of a hairy,
red-capped woodpecker. Snow
generously comforts a recently-bereaved
copse of elm, maple and poplar,
naked no longer. Trunks grey,
black and brown stippled
gloriously-blinding white.

Desiccated, bright orange bittersweet
fruit cluster along their vines'
chokehold on prickly Hawthorns.
Their haws shy against the
flamboyance of the others.
The creek drifts clear and tinkling
over gathered fall detritus
now heavily banked in snow.

A raven crosses the undecided sky,
its raucous call shredding the silence
swift body a black arrow true to its mark.
Soon, snow-muted silence regains
its imperious reign.

 

 

 

Three Strikes

 

Come now, gather 'round as we count the

ways: homeless, drug-addicted and now

vulnerable to the dread coronavirus. Your

luck in life appears to have run fairly thin.

On the good news side there are many fine

people dedicated to seeing that you get on

with life. Not life as most know it of course

but your life, the life you have somehow or

other managed to choose out of a vast

multitude of directions of which you chose

this one. Not that it has been satisfying for

you to daily face the elements that housing

would solve, nor that the occasional high

might compensate for the drearily miserable

lows nor the opportunity never directly

sought to overdose. Much less that the frail

state of your health identifies you to the virus

as a credible destination. And then of course

there's the boredom factor. Look, I'm not sitting

comfortably here in judgement of you and

the misery life has handed you. Was it a bad

crowd you enjoyed that your mother warned

you against? That enemy of youth, peer pressure?

Disappointment with the trajectory of your

life when you expected much, much more?

Well, here you are, there are few crossroads

you might choose from since you've already

completed all the choices that have led to this.

Truly, honestly with feeling, I wish you well.

 

 

Deus Misereatur

 

Unwilling to accept responsibility

for his own actions, man's first

collective decision was to create

the Creator. In that Supreme Being

would rest the authority to

affect us all, that Spirit would

move us to behave as we do. We

gratefully give ourselves up to

His protection, His mercy; ourselves

giving no quarter, showing no mercy

to those who deny His existence.

Time has changed our perceptions

for once a whole pantheon of gods

rose to our needs, gave way to an

Aton, finally a Jehovah, heir of El.

Man is adaptable, and with his

changing imperatives he recognizes

the need to alter allegiance to

a new supremacy. In this era the

computer is the latest manifestation

of Divine Presence and the seat of

bureaucracy its temples.

Number after number is sacrificed to

appease the god whose fodder we are.

Recognizing safety in anonymity, we

embrace the liturgy of ciphers

and comforted, we exist blindly,

in a  uniform dance of submission.

 

 

Random Selection vs Universal Conscription

 

The eerie universal attention on a natural

phenomenon that has caused the global

community, continent by continent to 

shut down, isolate, sacrifice time ingenuity 

and economies to a single focal point to stem

an unstoppable tide of mass annihilation

where a ferociously reproducing virus 

geared to its survival threatens humanity's 

has its counterpart in the not-so-distant past 

when a single ethnic minority became the

deadly target of the virus of totalitarian

ideology calling for its total destruction

and their plight went unnoticed by a world 

too busy for such distractions while the 

targets were relentlessly hunted, sequestered

trucked to holding centres until they could

most conveniently be destroyed once 

all they possessed had been looted, from 

gold and art and finally skin and hair in a

mobilization of conflict-useful confiscation

that began in slave labour and ended in 

malnutrition, disease and death. Jews

likened to pathogens that must be destroyed

lest their presence contaminate global society

terrorized and dehumanized, no defences 

to halt their organized obliteration. Now an 

unleashed pestilence grinds its way through 

continent after continent eliciting desperate 

fear and the entire world takes notice urgently

searching science for a cure to rescue humanity

from the scourge it obliviously released. 

Humanity in nature's own relentless cross

hairs, deadly variations on a dread theme.

 

 

Consequences

 

A courtesy call? How sweetly thoughtful!

How am I? Well, thank you. And how

are you? This, the extent of this new-age

conversation. At a distance, a discreet

and obligatory social and physical divide

beyond which no one should venture as

a matter of dire necessity, lest the vicious

virus that threatens humanity finds the

entrance it voraciously seeks to yet another

human interior where it plays havoc with

the immune system, handily overcomes

the respiratory organs nature thoughtfully

designed to sustain life as much as your

beating heart and blood-flow, initiating

a sinister, rapid descent of morbidity and

yet another life is lost. That nightmare

scenario is lost on no one, and prevention

embraces physical distancing and you cannot

now hug your mother, kiss your grandchild

enjoy meals together, celebrate cardinal

events of great symbolism to hope and

renewal together in the wish that you and

they will somehow manage to survive

this suspenseful ordeal imposed upon an

unready world that misread consequences.

 

 

The White Coat

 

For those with chronic illness impelled to attend 

a place of healing and comfort, hospitals resemble

institutions of religious faith where parishioners 

gather seeking direction and assurance from a higher

order whose earthly representative is regarded 

as an emissary from god. No less is the medical

practitioner considered a demi-god healing the ill

thrusting the spectre of the Grim Reaper away from

contention. And so doctors have become priests

of health, a position to which they accustom themselves

in entitlements of venerated power over death

taking their very special place in public trust. Until

nature presumed to retrieve for herself the overlooked 

reality as arbiter of existence, creator of all that is

in whom alone divine authority rests, thrusting the

world of man into a mad dilemma of its own 

devising where divine intermediaries, of faith and 

medicine find themselves helpless and what's more 

become themselves vulnerable targets reducing their

status to mere expendable human beings. There the 

story does not end for delving deep into their psyches 

and professions, suppressing fear and their own

humanity they rise to the occasion embracing their

colleagues while struggling desperately  to own 

the reputation they burnished to rescue humanity.