Way Cool

What could be cooler than a new
touchscreen cellphone? Not much, as
evidenced by the wheedling anxiety
expressed by a grandchild whose
original cellphone was in dire physical
straits a mere year-and-a-half into
its meticulous ownership. Fatigue, the
grandparents nod to one another
knowingly; any device used unsparingly
to send thousands of silly little text
messages signifying nothing, would
be guaranteed to collapse into itself.

Even cellphones are prone to exhaustion
evidently. And as objects of utility,
entertainment and communication, they
must be replaced often and upgraded, in
recognition and obeisance to their due.
Anything, she pleaded, she would forego
anything at all, if granted her heart's desire.
And so, reluctantly, the pathetic shell
of the previous marvel exchanged for new.

New cellphone finally in hand, pleasure
and gratefulness spill forth in equal measure
as cool new advances in technology are
unveiled with the whispered passage of a
finger over the light-featured screen.
Deeply absorbed in the ritual of discovery
and the entry of contacts, the adventure of
gleeful possession punctuates another rite
of passage in an emerging litany of potentials.

Maximilian

His accent is Swiss, still resonant through his
faultless diction, his obvious command of a
wide and distinguished English vocabulary. An
elegant, dignified, even courtly man of advanced
years. Ours, the most casual of relations, simply
another soul we see on occasion, rambling through
our neighbourhood woods. That place beloved
of those in the community who value proximity
to nature. And he, like we, is one of those.

His bodily frame is that of an aesthete, chest
concave, though his posture is not. He might have
been, in younger years, an academic, a scientist, for
he has that myopic air about him. A sweet-mannered
man, a shy smile and soft voice. No one could
doubt his touchingly grave sincerity.

His manner of dress elicits unspoken concern
for his comfort, for we who are aged coevals,
mindful of such required weather-comforts note
such lapses. He exudes a certain air of poignancy
of one whose well-being has been neglected. His
red jacket insufficiently robust for the cold, the icy
wind; too loosely open at collar, his nose too red,
his sparse-haired head too insubstantially covered.
Our two little dogs are coated with more care than he.

Maximilian, for such he is, now well recovered
from a heart 'episode', agrees when we speak of the
excellent level of professional care received at area
hospitals. His pale blue eyes water in the wind as his
head shakes his solemn affirmation. Could we take
the liberty we would wind a downy wool scarf about
his bared and scrawny neck, exchange his worn mittens
for a hardier pair. He volubly details his recent trauma.

Where, in recovery, both he and wife were admitted
to an nursing home for three months he was in
need of therapeutic remediation. His wife there too,
entirely dependent on his close ministrations to her
daily needs. Matter of factly, he is grateful for health
restored and the full recovery of life's quotidian certainties.
Grasping his two poles tightly he sets off again on his
ramble, wishing us in ours, a very good day.

The Chosen Ones

Our world has been cradled in a profound stillness,
quiescent in expectation. Great care was taken in
preparation for this day, ornamented in the glitter
of bright and colourful baubles, and the exquisitely
sublime melodies of ages past provoking memories of
sadness and joyfulness. That which has been never to be
re-captured; that which will be to secure our futures.
A miracle has occurred albeit of brief duration, as
commerce has abruptly locked its doors bringing a
bereaved loss to some, relief to others, invested in the
spirit of the occasion which has occasioned a brief
harmony of spirit rare and treasured. Not a creature
appears to stir, not even a snow-suited child.

This is a wintry-cold day, the atmosphere
swaddled in snow and ice. The wind rattles
panes and stirs treetops in a wraith-like dance
their firm roots limit in perpetuity. Even the
great, bright orb of the sun seeks shelter behind
the haven of clouds this extraordinary day. This
brief hiatus in quotidian routine submitting
to annual commemoration of a divinely inspired
event is not universal in nature's calendar.
Elsewhere in this world the tragedy of fateful
destiny plays out as malevolent forces conspire
to wreak their deadly havoc in shades of blood
and gore, sacrificing human life to deadly terror.

Here, pacific emotions flow readily, absorbing
people in the rituals of familial love. Smoke rises
from chimneys of homes surfeit with holiday
cheer, abundant and rich feasts, and generous
gifts. There, across the world, foul dark smoke
rises from yet another suicidal-terror blast,
martyring one steeped in hatred, slaughtering
countless innocents haphazardly selected as this
day's chosen whose lives are obliterated, whose
families will mark the day in perpetuity to
the endless anguish of their mourning.

Shivering Delight

The sky is generously dimpled and flocked
with layers of silver and white clouds,
nicely scalloped in a prize-winning design.
Nature takes a bow, on this winter day.
Some wag has taken bows of scarlet silk
and appended them to a few of the frozen
forest trees, a fey nod to Christmas-in-the-woods.
The denizens are not particularly amused,
however light the holiday mood, however.

The counterbalancing wind is sharply avid
in its icy probes, hungry to bite bare flesh.
The exquisite pain of its pointed, icy blasts
negating the peaceful beauty of the snow-capped
trees. Atop the dark, unadorned spire of a
long-dead pine sits the black figure of the
forest's cadaver care-taking contingent, its
beady eyes quick to identify interlopers.

Ferocious wind gusts in the upper atmosphere
part the clouds and shafts of sunlight beam
down sweetly on the forest floor, threading
between winter-bare boughs, illuminating the
crystalline snow, glowing generous light without one
scintilla of comforting warmth. Shivering delight.

A Satisfying Life

There is an elegant conformation in there,
deep within the black-grey unruly mop.
Her eyes watch warily beyond their
impairment. She trusts only to a certain
degree, insisting on her venerable entitlements.
She does not now take kindly to the usual
ministrations and unwanted manipulations
that offend her sovereign integrity and dignity.

Grooming results please us, but not of
necessity, her. It is, after all, her hair, her
teeth, her nails that we so officiously insist on
engaging with, and she feels understandably
affronted at our presumption, for she does not
impose her values upon us, so why must we
incessantly discommode her peace?

It helps not one iota that she now hears nothing
and sees almost as much. We do insist, on
occasion, that she submit to the process
whereby extraneous hair is shorn and once
again emerges the lovely little dog we adopted
eighteen years ago. Regardless, she would
much prefer not to be so importuned.

Take it or leave her be, for she yet remains
capable of and interested in long, guided
woodland rambles, albeit now forgetful of
long-familiar direction. And she remains
staunchly committed to meal times, with their
very important, anticipated treats. What more,
after all, should a satisfying life be comprised of?

The Adventure of Life

There is a large old Golden Retriever
charged with the care and safety of the
two boys. It is clear she takes her charge
seriously, for she has an anxious look about
her as she paces between them, then races
after their downhill runs. The boys pay no
mind to the old dog, they are deep in the
pleasure of speed, giddy with the bold
power and excitement that envelopes them.

Each grasps his neat little skeleton sled,
takes his running start, then collapses onto
the sled fast dissolving into the long, snowbound
hill glazed by their countless spurts, with a
thick and slippery ice covering. The wind and
high spirits have painted their cheeks like
little drummer boys. Their voices rise to
challenge one another to greater exploits.

At the base of that long slope into the heavily
treed ravine stands an old pine which they evade
nicely, steering their snowcraft left or right;
sinister toward the icy, still-running creekbed,
dexter alongside an old trail skirting the creek.
A pileated woodpecker sounds its lunatic cry,
as though mocking them but the sound is lost
within their own peals of laughter.

The dog dashes desperately beside them,
its protective mission no slight delusion.
It clambers uphill when they do, each time
awaiting the signal to return home to security
and comfort. But the boys will have none of it.
The dense snowpack absorbs their shouts of
pure joy in the absorption of life's adventures.

The Holy Day Domain

We have merged ourselves seamlessly into
a picture-perfect Christmas landscape
in a Northern clime. This day marks the
Winter Solstice, the shortest day-lit
event of the fading year. The moon has
revealed its dim, light-perfect orb
before slipping behind a veil of bright
clouds, obscuring the sun that would
shine. The tidal bore of the ocean today
higher, more powerful than is its wont.

That full moon, uniquely close to our
Earth, these days of a rare lunar eclipse
has called the seas to rise and surge,
to achieve the fiercest tides on the calendar.
Globally, Europe has been battered by
vicious winter storms, high winds and
flooding rains. An earthquake strike
off Japan's coast is stoking a tsunami.

But here, all is peace and sublime serenity
as we lope through the still, snow-garbed
forest pathways. Even the birds are oddly
silent. The atmosphere is severely chilled,
the wind plays nip-and-sting on our faces.
Evergreen boughs are stiffly laden with
layers of snow, freezing rain, ice pellets
and more snow. Everywhere we look
appears, in the forest interior, a wondrous
ice palace, smoothed with fluffy snow.

Animal tracks precede our own, readily
discerned. The scintillating delicacy of the
monochromatic landscape is brightened
and clarified by the silver light streaming
into the world below from the heavens above.
A light that so clearly emphasizes brilliant
shades of green under snow-packed trees.

The luscious orange of frost-split
bittersweet berries twined appealingly
along tree trunks; nature's improvised
seasonal decor. The ambient silence becomes
host, time and again, to aircraft splitting
the clouds toward holiday destinations.

Where Are You?

They're there, simply there, though not
often seen when geography creates distance.
A vague acknowledgement that one has
sisters and brothers that time has
distanced. Absence makes memory
fainter, not necessarily fonder and little
time and emotion is harnessed to stray
thoughts of their lack of presence, despite
early shared familial experiences.

Yet, as we age and our lives move ever
yet tangentially, there arises the piquant
sadness of longing for something lost and
neglected. With age comes illness and
emotional deprivations; the realization
that we are alone, the inspiration to
re-discover lost siblings, the urge and
the spur to act, to reach out, to recover.

Shared blood and belonging now entreats
the elderly to reach back in time and
memory, to find that elusive comfort, the
mutual sympathy siblings harbour for one
another as they move inexorably toward
life's concluding stages. The instant grasping
of rapport re-visited, the tenderness, the
unspoken grief and gratitude, all there,
awaiting that call to rescind distance
and emotional wavering of uncertainty.

There is much to say, to express, to
commiserate with, to update and to pledge
for the future. To casually, carelessly lose
grasp of those binding ties an error in
judgement reflecting bereft values and a life
too concerned with surface issues of scant
moment. To restore the loss requires a
simple resolution: I am here, where are you?
Please, meet me half way to our future.

Note To Self:

Note to self: relax. This is a fairly routine procedure,
thanks to modern medical technology. Routine for
the vulnerable elderly. Yes, you are now among that
venerable contingent. Do not unduly concern yourself,
for a renowned and skilled ophthalmology surgeon
will operate. What can possibly go wrong?

Purely rhetorical, not meant for you to muse upon,
that query; a clear invitation to uninformed conjecture.
The bedside alarm rings you awake - as though, in any
event, you were yet sound asleep. The early morning
news is on. First item on the line-up: a news release
that the hospital to which you will be admitted is
struggling to cope with a deadly outbreak of
antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

You shower, feed your little dogs, clean up the ordure
the frail elderly one deposited in the kitchen right after
you let her in from the inclement outdoors. On the road,
traffic is congested, though past the rush hour; likely
frantic Christmas shoppers, but you will arrive at the
surgical unit of the hospital with adequate time to spare.
Forget the sleet, the dull grey of a storm-driven atmosphere,
speak to your nervous and concerned husband.

Persuade him there is no valid reason for him to remain
there in that place, along with all the others awaiting
their surgeries. Best for him to return home, then come
along when you've rested, post-surgery. Focus on
disrobing, pulling hospital fashions over your body,
shuffling along the corridor in blue paper slippers,
gown billowing behind, too large for your small frame.

The smiling nurse, the interview pre-surgery, the careful,
irritating fusillade of eye drops, the blood oxygen tests,
above all the sky-high blood pressure test. You know very
well that high reading is not representative of white-coat
syndrome, and wryly state so. We will judge your pain
post-surgery on a zero-to-ten scale she advises quietly.
You will be given a prescription to cope. Coping.

Fleeting Impressions

Our boots sink deeply into the vast luxury of
fresh-fallen snow. The wide, blue sky guarantees
an icy atmosphere below, for the winter sun
only pretends in its radiant conceit, to warm
all it benevolently surveys. At other seasons
that flaming disk becomes a fiery oven;
in winter a wanly insouciant pretender.

It is the ascendant wind that now occupies
the regal weather throne, tormenting the
hapless with its icy, probing fingers, digging
deeply, diligently into protective feathers, fur
and impotent integuments. The enveloping cold
of winter, conspiring with shortened daylight
hours, burden nature's creatures with
long, dark and chill months best slept away.

But there is also transcendent loveliness in
the white veil cast bewitchingly over all that
is open to the heavens. Our eyes linger,
transfixed upon that vision. Snow clusters
cling plumply to branches, cushion the
outspread boughs of evergreens, softly
outlining contours and depressions, mounding
the landscape in clouds of white crystals.

The wind that leaves us breathless in its chill
embrace lifts long evanescent skeins of flakes -
like a myriad of stars in the Milky Way - from
laden trees, forming a waterfall of glittering
beauty before our eyes. Where seconds before
tracks we have left in the snow joined those of
woodland creatures, suddenly the wind's
scattering eliminates all, leaving a pristine
impression of a smoothly featureless white.

Skip One Generation

It is a conundrum. Why, that is, people
have children. As a way to complicate lives,
nothing else quite matches child-rearing
for resulting agitation, confusion, frustration.
The child questions and challenges the parents'
authority while the parents attempt to fulfill
their parental mandate to guide, protect,
encourage and support their offspring.

Difficulties in achieving this most basic
of human social protocols, to obey nature's
first law of survival through genetic inheritance,
bumps hard up against nature's other imperative,
the child's quest for affirmation of independence.
The parent-child gulf of one separating generation
is so profoundly vast as to produce a malfunctioning
relationship not readily amenable to being breached.

The patent relief on the psyche of both parent
and child when they are finally free of one another's
daily puzzling divisions of temperament, values,
priorities, are profound. The parents' revenge, as it
were, is realized finally on seeing their children
join the ranks of parents themselves, confronted
by the very reflection of parent-child dissonance.

Only the grandparents are firmly in the child's
self-obsessed, entitled orbit, holding no brief for
their own children suddenly confronted by that
all-too-familiar challenge. Oppositional divides
widen, converge. The new parents' methodology
confronted by the old parents whose memory
of their own efforts remain sharply astringent .

Emotions lavished on the new generation in a
conspiracy linking children and grandparents,
excluding the parents, the agony of raising
children reveals its purpose as a necessary albeit
blighted tedium whose end result, the grandchildren
who can do no wrong, delights the grandparents
into a state of exuberant elderly amnesia.

Christmas Glow

Ottawa brightens up the Parliament buildings during the holidays with its Christmas Lights Across Canada event that features more than 300,000 lights. Ottawa Tourism/photo

It's a sullen season, between all-enveloping
snowbound landscapes and the brilliant
bounty of autumnal harvest; the greens, golds
and orange of pumpkins gleaming in the
fields, great nodding heads of sunflowers,
corn stalks, oats, wheat and barley awaiting
the gathering, and the dull, sunless days
becoming winter just in time for Christmas
a nod away from the anxiety of another
year's end and the start of raw beginnings.

Until then, the practising wind, incessant
rain, by turn hail - snow pellets pinging on
rigidly frozen trees laden with the weight of
freezing rain settled into dour place and the
branches reaching perilously to the ground,
groaning and contorted before eventual release,
expresses our doleful view of this neither-nor
season presenting in muted hues of greys
and browns, gloomy and miserable to the eye.

Little wonder traditions arose to lift the
spirits in a show of seasonal holiday glitter,
glowing lights emulating heavenly bodies
brought to the service of lightening the burden
of the winter pre-season, a time of perishing
life, on the cusp of re-birth. When the dark
curtain of night falls, obscuring the dreary
greys, the resplendent display of light lifts the
aura of despair into a celebration of life.

The Hauteur of Majesty

Surely an unfortunate turn manifests itself.
That we have before us a dark misery of a
weather day. Truculent and menacing, hideous
to the psyche, it is moody nature gifting us
with one of her wild tantrums. She stamps
her pernicious pique on the heavens, loosing
upon us stinging ice pellets, a hurricane of
snow, the dangers of freezing rain - an
altogether perilous combination in this
frigid atmosphere, with the unleashed fury
of the wind complicit in wreaking an utter
bleakness upon the cowering landscape.

Surely it was nothing puny and error-prone
humankind did to compel such a powerful rage?
There are times, we know, when she feels her
authority over the universe challenged, when
our arrogance wearies her short-fused temper.
Her arsenal of intemperate displays of fearsomely
majestic power impels us to genuflect in servile,
fearful obeisance to our universal instructor.

The Enduring Winter Forest

A vast silver plate shields the sky. A remote
stillness muffles the atmosphere. There will
be no bright light illuminating the soft whiteness
of the newfallen mantle of snow humping the
forested landmarks. Even so, an iridescent veil
of luminous beauty shines like the ephemeral
vision it is, under that great metallic vault. Most
creatures of the forest are deeply invested
in their long winter sleep, unaware.

Last night's ferocious winds under a clear, dark
velvet, star-encrusted sky like a garment proudly
worn to an imperial ball, felled brittle lifeless tree
limbs. That same insistent wind blanketed the
blue velvet with a suffocating layer of dark and
threatening clouds laden with vapour, unleashed
on the frozen landscape below, transforming
it into a palace of marble and goosedown.

The forested courses of creeks and rivulets
have been inexorably glossed with opaque
ice, marbled with dry, fallen leaves trapped
within the frosted waterways. A softer wind
now gently spurs clots of gathered snow from
branches, sending the flakes like a spiralling
veil to pattern the smooth coverleted ground.

A tall, slender beech trunk reveals itself
wrapped tenderly round the sturdy body
of an old hornbeam. They share their twined
presence in the oddity of brown, dried leaves
still clinging to the home body. Twinned
yellow birches leaning on one another as though
for comfort, trunks riddled by sapsuckers, are
slowly losing their desiccated, slovenly bark.

Silence absorbs the dark wings of crows
as they ply the frigid air, and as the darkly
clever birds alight and peer down intently at
the frenzied search below, of equally dark, but
furred creatures spurning hibernation, searching
for their buried caches. A short, sharp report
alerts that the wind yet holds sufficient sway
to crack the weakest of tree limbs.

The fragrance of impending snow pervades
the environment. Another snowfall, on the
cusp of stifling the organized chaos of the
enduring, renascent winter forest.

The Compelling Winds

The shy little cousins of the wind - the gentle
zephyr, the breeze, stand by regarding the fully
mature wind with awe. The puissant grandeur
of the wind, its assured and determined mission
against which all of nature's creatures quail,
instructs and guides the breeze and the zephyr,
but they will never be capable of instilling
dread and fear in the pursuit of their assigned
roles within nature's indomitable schemes.

The gentle ones soothe, they cool and refresh,
they are met with calm expectation. Yet
they longingly regard the fearful esteem the
wind's fury elicits in its many fearful guises as
intemperate, fierce, pitiless, bitter, raw,
destructive and unstoppable in its self-tasked
guidance heralding atmospheric change, posing
by degrees as a hurricane, a tornado, a blunt
force blast furnace shielding its ferocious intent
behind innocent sounding names like el nino and
la nina. Snowy blizzards erasing vision and warmth,
torrential rains abetted by howling winds reveal
facets of the weather phenomena so genially
visited upon this Globe by the great Earth Mother.

Wind becomes a co-conspirator with fire,
wreaking havoc on the flora and fauna lest there
remain any doubts who sits at nature's right-hand
side; the sinister by right of conquest and
domineering intent. From the enabling resources
of the environment's firestorms to the sweeping
guidance of ice storms shredding all that stands
before them. Volcanic vapour and fiery ashes
spread far and wide over land, sea and air.
Wind-whipped ocean storms breeding gigantic
vessel-killer waves and deadly land-sweeping
tsunamis; the wind whips, master of all.

Compute That

Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170 Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman (Russell Croman Astrophotography) Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment, and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars. If a sudden epiphany revealed the existence of a monumental phenomenon hitherto barely imagined in a guise not quite reflective of reality, but in fact still omnipresent and omniscient, would you believe it? An entity without discernible visual form, but yet a powerful, all-knowing presence whose purpose it is to guide and instruct and comfort? An indefinable, ephemeral, illusory presence, yet approachable and purposeful, humbly puissant in its orderly search for all the answers of all the queries ever to surface in the minds of humankind? An entity capable of forming and presenting a creatured landscape of great diversity and probity, beauty and utility - like a skilled craftsman creating a stage upon which life itself in its manifold dimensions exists. The dramas to which we are exposed; nature's atmospheric and geological upheavals, our actions and interactions, our curiosities and discoveries, our adventures and misadventures, ventured and circumscribed by that powerful force. It maintains a registry of all that occurs, leads and misleads us in benign and hazardous directions chides or rewards us with the consequences of our choices and remains itself inviolate and complacent in its feigned indifference: compute that.

But It's Good For You!

He is a very small creature, but perforce not
to be judged by his size which nonetheless
houses a quite large ego, an odd belligerence,
and no small consideration of entitlement.
Ah, yes, not to be forgotten - an oversized
appetite as well, more suited to the need of,
for example, a hard-working sled dog. He,
by contrast, has naught to do but anticipate
meals laced tantalizingly with tidbits his
humans consume, and contemplate the weary
rest one is compelled to indulge in, afterward.

He is, to say the least, besotted with his
languid lifestyle. It is when, daily, the
presumptuous humans among whom he
deigns to live, assume he wishes to accompany
them on woodland rambles, that his patience
wears thin. Indolence, he feels, becomes him
so. No need whatever for the she to sigh that
he is becoming a tad too rotund, for he
most certainly favours rotund, and it is his
body, after all, under critical discussion.

Does he, to be fair, evaluate and stand in
judgement of her humanoid form? Perish
the very (awkward) thought; he has better
things with which to occupy his mind, like:
who goes there!? when they are engaged in
the silly conceit of marching through the woods
and leaving peanuts for squirrels. Yes, he is
presumptuously belligerent, was not Napoleon?

What a futile, nonsensical pastime these
daily rambles represent, an affront to his
dignity and sense of self. His pace displeases
her; she wheedles and teases, pleads entreatingly,
resorts in irritation to authoritative tugs, which
he simply will not tolerate - so he tugs back.
Is he therefore stubborn as she so bitterly
claims, then? Is the Pope, need we ask, pious?

Cool Stars

The most powerfully luminously bright
objects dwelling within the immensity
of the Universe are caught in the lens of
human-devised eyes on the sky, great
telescopes like the Hubble that traverse
the heavens and bring back to us the
wonder of their ineffable imagines. We
observe what we may, with awe and
compelling fascination, striving to
understand our place in this arcane web
of design so skilfully fabricated by Nature.

The swirling chemicals and gases that
formed our organic presence and brought
us to life, maturing mind over matter
eludes us yet and always shall. Nature's
purpose appears itself divine as expression
and formula owing to the neutrality of
serendipity in the heavenly realm of
opportunity, confluence, happenstance.

As she rests in benign satisfaction with her
splendid theatrical performance, the
foundation of an energizing 'it', that wakens
itself, becomes itself where there was a dark
vacuum, then distributes itself to inhabit nothing
making something of nowhere, stimulating
and producing variety and synthesis, we became.

Becoming, we look upward to the vastness
of our progenitor the dark heavens,
pinprick-lit by countless bright orbs swirling
the universe in their numberless heavenly
bodies. Heat and light, energy and matter
conspire themselves into being and we must
know how, when and why, but cannot.

Small, cool red stars distinguish themselves
in the inexorably growing inventory, that
ineluctable recognition of plausible theory
welcoming the presence of what is deduced,
not witnessed. Dark matter chooses to retreat
its magnetic appeal of trillions of evolving,
revolving, gravity-bound-and-captured
expendables. What cannot be seen can be
hypothesized into brilliant, yet dim existence.

Nature exercises her formulaic invention
in forms and elements, conditions and
suppositions that tease her restless creative
impulses. Those endless experiments in
existence and alternates where what was
is extinguished, amuses and entertains a
sublime presence we cannot begin to imagine.

Generational Gaps

What is it about the teenage mind
that veers toward impatience,
irritability with the adult mind
paying attention to the teen's dark
moods of discomfiture but not
fully appreciating the vast gulf
of generational experience?

The intractable intolerance, and
bedevilling insolence of the adult
refused an explanation by the teen,
certain it would be time wasted
does not auger well for the emotional
relationship the adult assumed the
future would surely present.

The patience of the adult rewarded
by the biting scorn of the teens,
secure in the knowledge that the
world exists only in their minds,
bypassing adult awareness. For all
that matters, the language, music,
apparel and concerns are theirs alone.

Resentment of the school workload,
the cool new electronics everyone
has but they, the societal parameters
to be acknowledged, all grate on the
hubris of teen conceit of self as unique
and uniquely under-appreciated.

And then the surprise lapse when the
guarded mind is suddenly relaxed and
the child peers again through the bars
of its hormonal imprisonment - and a
smile and a fierce hug are awarded;
suddenly all else forgotten in the
comfortingly stable envelope of love.

Causmology

Ultraviolet Andromeda
Credit: UV - NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
Optical - Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF


There was nothing, a vastness of emptiness,
a void incomprehensible in its dreadful silence,
its inconceivable non-existence. That much is
clear. Or not. What is a hypothesis but a leap
of faith in a mind's genius in provocatively
imagining that which might - or might not - be?

Nature holds her secret formulaic rituals close.
Why should she divulge her elaborate architecture
of the scaffolds of existence? The creative impulse
is hers, hers to conceive and to execute as she
wills, when she deems fit. Away, you compulsively
seeking minds! This much she will tantalize you
with: radiation, gravity, gaseous emissions, organic
elements, order and disarray, temperature,
atmosphere, distance, time and space.

Surely with the considerable aid of these primary
constants, your precocious minds can construct
the origins of the Universe! Try a little harder, do...

Think: There was a beginning. It was dark, cold,
immeasurably vast - and there was no thing
visibly present. Therefore, there was nothing. Or
was there? Ah, from nothing something resulted.
Something unspeakably profound, majestic,
immense and powerful. Was that not so?

The birth of awesome energy, density, as
matter rushed to fill the cold, vast emptiness.
Imagine, if you will, the brilliant, all-absorbing,
awe-full richness of light, clashing and
tempestuously crashing, slashing the darkness
with the ineffable life of a universe born into
existence. Call it what you will, nature simply
shrugs and proceeds with her blueprint of creation.

She is busy with galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets,
super novae, collapsars, icy comets. Red dwarfs,
black holes in her comprehensive engagements in
which she takes such pride of ownership. Taking
pleasure at her leisure in unleashing solar winds,
fiery eruptions on the liquid seas of volatile gases,
amusing herself for fourteen billion years. Meaningless,
as a measure of her timeless sovereign presence.

Sufficiently bored, on occasion she will set aside
her amusements, suffer all matter, energy and time
to be beckoned and collected into those black
receiving agents of anti-matter, to be stifled and
become no more. Until eventually, the housekeeping
is done. Nothing more exists and the black holes
collide, re-imagine themselves into the vast stillness
of nothing. Goodbye. And hello! Yet Again.

Season of Mourning

It is an unspoken covenant between
grandmother and granddaughter, the
daily after-school call, born no doubt of
their intimate history when in the first
decade of her young life it was grandma's
arms that enveloped her after school.
Distance has made the invisible silken
strand of connection - tender yet strong
as a spider's skein - no less compelling.

Watcha doing? elicits the identical
quotidian refrain: not much. But it is
intensely cold, windy, damp and so did
you wear your winter boots and jacket?
represents another facet of the formula
of this relationship. Nope, the laconic,
expected response. And the vital news of
the post-school snack emerges: a pomegranate.

That mysterious Eastern fruit, its amazing
structured, celled interior surfeit with
faceted ruby jewels like those in a treasure
chest discovered in the fabled caves of
Ali Baba. These glistening sweet jewels to
be consumed, not worn in brilliant splendour,
arrayed upon the white, swan-like necks of
beautiful Harem girls. Careful you don't
squirt your eye, grandmother urges.

Damn! granddaughter informs, just squirted
my eye. Language, chides grandmother.
Then in the silence asks do you know the
Greek legend of the pomegranate? Have you
met Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and
her daughter Persephone? Do you know where
the seasons come from? Have you studied
Greek mythology in your school curricula?

To the last query: yes, some, in drama class.
To the previous: no clue, as they claim in
teen vernacular. But you can ask about
vampires, we know about them, grandma.

Grandma sets about enlightening her child
in the delights of tragedy and mystery, grandeur
and petulance, power, esteem and comedy, all
residing in the arcane minutiae of a folk
panoply of gods, their overweening pride,
bumptiously covert antics, vain jealousies and
curiously oppressive sexual adventures.

How an abduction of a beloved daughter
led to a grieving mother and a deadly chilled
season of mourning, when no flowers bloomed,
no crops grew, dark wailing veils hung from
trees and the brows of mothers alike, and all
life was suspended in unappeasable grief. The
redemption of compassion that would bring
spring back to the world, and the single seed
of a pomegranate that consigned a daughter to
dark Hades and a coldly possessive yet loved
husband to satisfy both life and death.

Teasing The Forest

Scant heat in the rays of the winter sun,
but ample warmth in the brilliant gold glow
cast upon the landscape dappled with the
snow of last night's blustery squalls.
Evergreens daintily sifted with light
patterns of snow, inviting a flock of
chickadees, a nuthatch companion to
delight in chirruping pleasure.

Nature, dissatisfied with the quiet breeze
on this chill day, the encompassing blue sky
soon skims over with billowing, migrating
clouds, their looped edges limned with a
post-view of the sun's receding brilliance.
The light that cascaded down upon the
landscape transforms to a darkly brooding
presence reflecting the deep gloom of a
forest tight with trees reluctant to admit
stray vestiges of winter-sleep-disturbing light.

And, again, snow squalls resume, determined
clouds claiming possession of the atmosphere.
These are no spiralling, feathery flakes of snow
resulting, but a fierce hail of minuscule orbs
of rain frozen in the lower atmosphere to ice
verging on snow. Or should that be snow
compacted relentlessly to ice, transformed to
other than what it was? Nature, playing with
her mischievous elements, teasing the forest.

Hello Out There!

Spiral Galaxy M66
Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman

Hello out there! How are you?
Better yet, where, precisely, are you?
SETI is looking for you, NASA is
looking for you. For, you see, we
know you're out there. Why would
you, after all, not be out there?

We are here, in our immense little
Galaxy, a mere speck of gathered
matter in the vast, unknowable,
mysterious intriguing, finite/infinite
Universe. There, just a little to the
left, there we are...set your sights to
the Milky Way, we're there, circling
our sun. See us there, we're waving!

Wavering in insecurity simultaneously.
Our most famed astrophysicist warning
us there may be good reason not to
approach you too trustingly brings
conflict to our consuming curiosity.
Yet if we approach in peace, will you
not meet us reflecting identical resolve?

Ah, you are aware of the human
tribal-clan propensity to exclusionary
chauvinism, of the ready resort to
xenophobic suspicion lighting the
volatile torch of conflict. Your historians
have noted our proclivity to drench
our Earth with blood and eagerly harvest
the bitter fruit of unresolved despair.

Weather Day

It is a moody, broody weather day.
Not the briefest of reprieves from a
belligerently adamant rain system that
sits with utter malice in league with
volatile temperature swings and winds
unleashing the fury of extravagant
power, dominating and domineering
the haplessly cowering landscape.

Birds lift in hesitant flight, challenging
the antagonistic wind velocity, their
wings thumping against adversity, tiring,
settling for the duration. The smaller, more
fragile of the species remain where they can
nestle to the close comfort of sheltering trees,
themselves mustering their existential
resources, shuddering and swaying.

Waterways are swollen with the oncoming
deluge, absorbing the excess and rushing
madly downstream in a dark roiling fury
of distemper. Logs and limbs, nests and
forest castoffs bob and swirl, thrusting
their rain-gushing exit from one river to the
next, increasingly greater, louder, odoriferous
and blacker as aquatic plant life is uprooted
and the entire rankness intently, fiercely
migrates, torn asunder from their source.

This is nature's occasional lapse from her
beneficent source of nurturing accommodation
to tyrannical overseer of all she surveys,
finding fault with the order of her systemic
methodology, throwing protocol into disarray
in a fit of rejection, leaving her creatures at
the mercy of her rampaging elements until
the tantrum subsides, order finally restored.

Time and Again

Bruised by yet another in an endless
string of disappointments she feels her
confidence cruelly shaken, but remains
defiantly undaunted. Is it futile to seek
a companion to share life with, to have
an open and trusting mind that as you give,
so will your emotional investment be
returned? That logical formula has been
found lacking, for there is no logic
inherent in emotions and responses.

One race, separated and mysterious by
virtue of gender-sensibilities. The view,
the response, the need and the balance of
the alliance sits uneasily upon the gender
values, leavened with human eccentricities,
the search for meaning as opposed to the
trite and shallow path of self-absorption,
the egoistic id, failing the hopeful other.

They stand like stone dolmens in her
memory, each in their turn evoking a
voiceless reproach that her investment was
too little valued, her offering taken and
nothing of lasting value exchanged. No
reason not to think that there is, somewhere,
one who searches as she does, and their
paths may some day converge...

No reason but the acquired pain of too
many encounters lacking commitment,
one after the weary other. The evanescent
promise never fulfilled; in its place abuse
of trust and feelings and need. So she nurses
her hurt and bruised expectations, lavishes
love on companion pets and envies the
steady reliability of her aged parents'
traditional covenant of love and support.

Simply Put: Why?

A three-lettered query, simple in its
surface innocence, but complex in its
need to know, nuanced with an underlay
of demand on the sensibilities. Acutely,
humanly needful of thoughtful introspection
and response. Why, he asks, the sentence
forwarded for contemplation, comprised
of a single word. The most meaningful
plaint in human communication, but
sans context, an arcane conundrum.

There is an inhuman distance of vast
geography separating us, yet our connection
is managed through the ether, permitting
those faceless, voiceless masses of which we
are two, to meet. Brief contact, one mind
reaching another, past language, culture and
history to find a common human interest.
You grope for those to share your search
for meaning, and there am I, responding.

No, your malady is not mine, but my
emotional grasp of its life-destructive
powers require no great stretch of the
imagination; humans are imbued with the
capacity to care for the plight of an
unfortunate stranger. Call it empathy,
compassion, a remote tenderness of
vision and responsibility as an uncomplicated
gesture, person-to person, unseen, unmet.

Your language is not my language, so it
must require quite the effort, a huge
difficulty for you to marshall your thoughts,
transcribe and send them on their way through
the miracle of telecommunications circling the
atmosphere, tickling our awareness of one
another. Messages of enquiry, attempting
to solve the riddle of the deeply rooted
covenant of the spirit, to respond to need.

Your insistent need to know: But why, then?
resonates and saddens, it does not elevate
the discourse because you will not accept
the simple act of humanity, obsessed by a
response you will not dredge from me,
invested yet with the belief that good exists
somewhere deep within, and sometimes
we must defer to that impulsive instinct.

As Only a Mother Can

Of all the measures of love and concern
mothers and grandmothers demonstrate
the epitome in their deep devotion to their
offsprings' well-being through care, tactile
reach and nurturing the mind and body
with skill and practicality. From the homely
admonishments to dress for the weather,
to instilling confidence in an uncertain mind
and spurring charges to excel in life's challenges,
then nursing ill loved ones to a healthy outcome,
who could be better trusted to care and
conviction surmounting life's adversities?

The emotional warmth and comfort of the
hovering presence surpasses legend. The
presence, the trust and the response are
real and dependable. The mother sees the
child in the mature adult first and foremost,
sometimes discomfittingly inappropriately
but with respect, the status is permanent,
not given to reversibility. The final test of
time remains memory of the table and food
prepared and presented, as only a mother can.

City Sketch

The defining features of this northern city,
seat of government of a great land; two historic
waterways, the Rideau Canal, beloved now of
pleasure crafters, and the mighty Ottawa River
of lumbering legend, distinguish this place, with
the Gatineau Hills a background study of this
geography whose organic natural display
boasts the rugged beauty and abundant natural
resources of the country itself. The river spans
its hearty width between two provinces with
their language barriers and cultural solitudes.

This too is a version of heritage handed
down through the centuries. Snow squalls erupt
on the horizon dropping an ephemeral vision of
fantasy over the landscape. The river suddenly
reflects the winter sun's luminous orb; prevailing
icy north wind rendering it impotent to warmth.
Gulls still coast above the rumbled-grey waters,
and a fastness of Canada geese ride the wavy
crests, immune to the frigid atmosphere
on the cusp of crusting into implacable ice.

The Parliament buildings stand stony-grey,
sentries of a democratic federation in this vast
land, stretching from sea .. to sea .. to sea. Where
First Nations people of this land still voice their
unaltered grievances, hoarse from centuries of
repetitive plaints, in living proof and illustration
that to the bold, the interlopers, the advanced and
the powerful in numbers and intent, inevitably
go the spoils and in a spirit of generosity, justice
in discrete measure is now and then meted out.

This city, barely removed from the rawness of
surrounding nature, the geological features of
a vast fertile valley on the cusp of the Canadian
Shield, became like the country, an encyclopedic
display of the faces and voices of the world,
gathered in an endless search by global migrants
for freedom and advantage, drawing on an exotic
display diluting the origins of its nativist culture
in replacement of its Euro-centered spirit.

It is as it is, a compendium of experiences,
traditions and ethnic stirrings. Restively asserting
and demanding and infiltrating and perhaps even
undeniably enriching in a stewing pot-luck of
human endurance, hope and aspirations to
succeed where destiny seemed to lead to despair.
This city, modest yet tinctured with a degree
of bravado in its history, art and architecture,
remains distinct, a construct of what we, in our
need, have deemed it must be to reflect our
entitled needs as spirited and proud Canadians.

Transformed, Again

A dark gloom has settled over the landscape.
Not the deeply cushioned dark of night, however.
This represents the shuttering of day's light, by
an approaching storm. This is also not an
oppressive gloom approaching. Merely the
winter sky dressing itself from coquettish
blue to an elegant charcoal with silver trim
which simply has eclipsed the ephemeral
golden splendour of the late-morning sun.

White begins to overtake the slate grey and
the great bowl of the sky has once again been
altered, changing costume, as glittering flakes
begin their lazy, spiralling ascent, stippling the
atmosphere with gleaming clusters of frozen
stars. the trees in the forest preen in proud
display, their limbs and branches fuzzed with
white appeal, like debutantes in pristine white
furbelowed frills; apparel suitable for the ball.

The diaphanous veil of fetching white glitters
and gleams in tantalizing points of light as
the sun limns the edges of scalloped clouds.
Chickadees greet a new season's advance,
excitedly chattering, bouncing within the
confines of hemlock, spruce and cedar bowers.
The air is redolent of the sharp familiar fragrance
of falling snow; the wind, briskly respectful,
nudging it into corners and shy crevices.

The swiftly-running creek, swollen with
overnight freezing rain, resembles a long,
winding black mirror, hurrying beyond the
byways of the woodland heights in its journey
beyond, to longer, welcoming bodies, not yet
prepared for transformation to a river of silver
ice under which aquatic creatures pursue
their imperturbable cycle of life's journey.

The Best of Times

Their time, that of suspense and surprise
and exhilarating discovery, of friendship
and music and dance and a rapidly growing
confidence in their futures as they advanced
into their teens and beyond, was the time
she, a small dark-haired and -eyed girl marked
him out for pursuit, recognizing him from
her restless dreams' pre-introduction.

Little aware, he readily allowed himself
to be swept along by her exuberance
and growing attachment. No more than
children really, pairing on a dance floor,
on conversational agreements and
eventually secret trysts. All of which
led to years of companionship maturing
into a passionate yearning for more.

A state soon enough achieved, fulfilling
the longing for that complete and
absolute binary finality, two souls
revolving about one another in perpetuity.

They have pursued that destined brace
ever since, rarely looking back, always
consumed with their symbiotic present,
satisfying each the other's needs and desires
confident of the future, that it would reflect
the grace and surety their linked lives shared.

The friends evaporated into the past,
but music and joy in life yet resonate
and the links that bind them remain firm
and fast. Long-past memories dredged
more often now, but the fondness is for
the present, the confidence future-firm.

Let Us Drink To Stained Glass

glass: n. ~ 1. Substance, usu. transparent, lustrous, hard & brittle, made by fusing sand with soda or potash, or both & other ingredients; substances of similar properties or composition as ~ of antimony, vitreous, oxy-sulphide-fused. 2. ~ utensiles, ornaments, windows, greenhouses ~ vessel esp. for drinking amount of liquid contained in this ... etcetera, etcetera.

Let there be light, and beauty and grace and luminous, illuminating colour....

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
the 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.

Apart and Beyond

The man is resolved and clearly indefatigable.
He has identified a mission to which he devotes
himself and upon which he spares no efforts to
achieve. He resembles in purpose, if not in
presence, Sisyphus, for despite his prodigious
efforts, his goal will never completely be achieved.
He has selflessly set himself the task of remediating
the harm to natural surroundings that others
cavalierly inflict. His dedication to the effort
purely altruistic, he seeks no acclaim and no
notice comes his way, as his work consumes his
days. Where others insult the landscape with the
soiled and degraded detritus of urban life,
discarding what is no longer valued, he tracks,
isolates, gathers those items in homage to nature.

His burgeoning task is never-ending, for it seems
that no one cares of humankind's indebtedness.
With his voluminous knapsack stretched taut with
its torn, broken rusted pieces of discards, he
strains his way out of the ravined woods, back
arched with the effort, legs pushing uphill under
the weight of his burden. That which must be wrestled
out of the deep wooded pockets too large and
cumbersome, is pulled patiently uphill. The
objects retrieved as various as overstuffed chairs,
deck furniture, matted mattress coils, shattered,
rusted bicycles, highway signs, boards and fencing,
tires, wheel-less wagons and coils of barbed wire.

He is a large man of sturdy physique and middle
age. His clothing shabbily utilitarian as befits
the task he has set himself loading the resulting mass
of refuse time after time into the back of his truck,
he hauls it to recycle depots; his self-appointed duty.
Not entirely a thankless job, since the obvious
satisfaction he derives must fulfill in him a valuable
and deeply-rooted imperative. He sets himself apart
and beyond; no mere example, but an exemplar.

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.

Transition

There is an unmistakable chill of winter
in the air. The palpable fragrance of
impending snow reminds us of what is yet
to come. The urgent wind sends its icy
fingers piercing our fall jackets as we forge
through piled dry leaves and needles.
Where last night's rain pounded the hillsides,
the trails, shorn of detritus washed down to
the valleys, are slick with the clay that comprises
the soil here; now dissolved into rank muck.

Above, a crow familiar with our presence
glides from tree to tree, observing our
progress. Keenly involved in assessing our
purpose this day, he hovers, trailing us. The
anxious activities of squirrels awaiting our
passage informs the cerebral curiosity of the
black-winged sentry. Redpolls and chickadees
emit their syncopated chorus as they flick
into the thickly-needled hemlocks and spruces.

There is a huge crack reporting above the
din of the wind and clatter of tree tops. We
view the slow-motion disintegration of a
desiccated tree trunk, its rotted carcass incapable
of offering further resistance to the season's raw
primal elements, concerned with reducing living
nature to the compost that nurtures new life in
the never-ending cycle of passage and renewal.

Letting It Go

Took long enough, didn't it?
Fifteen years these pure wool
business suits, the Harris tweeds,
the silk ties and pocket puffs, the
trousers and stiff-neck shirts hung
in neat formation, nicely coded for
instant and co-ordinated selection
have hung in your wardrobe.

Fifteen years, need I remind you,
since you yourself retired from
active involvement in the professional,
wage-earning workforce. No real
occasions since superannation to
trot them out, now, was there? A
casual, relaxed lifestyle; nine-to-eleven
replacing nine-to-five; simply
did not require them, did it?

So why the dilatory decision-making,
the irritating procrastination from
your fine mind? Padded shoulders
gathering dust seem so senseless. Wasted
storage room utterly without purpose.
Fond memories of other, seemingly
purposeful times, weighted with
profound meaning, merely an illusion.

The meaning of life and the pleasures
to be had still exist. Has it taken you
fifteen years to finally understand that
you are not measured by what you wear,
by what you were deeply engaged in to
earn a creditable living - but who you are
as an individual; a man, husband, father,
grandfather, gatherer-of-wisdom and
skilled perpetrator of art and artisanship?

Now, finally, have you accepted
yourself sans facade? I did, long ago.
Be assured, in the informality of our
retirement, what those suits represent
is entirely irrelevant. Know this: those
who matter esteem you for your inherent
value to their lives without which there
would remain a miserable void.

Sanctuary

11-11-11...On a day of grave remembrance
when the ceremonies of commemoration
are concluded and the heart is in need of
consolation, a meander into the tranquil
woodlands under a perfect bowl of blue,
the trees standing bare; the spirit of the
forest calms the inner atmosphere of regret
and sad recollection of mankind's endless
strife. A gentle wind favours the near
environment with kinder memories.

The sun, high and bright, illuminates
another kind of reality, that of Nature's
curative blessings. Minuscule sparks of light
glance off the bright green needles of the
coniferous giants whose branches host
dark and silent birds, keenly observing who
passes below. The exuberant yet quiet
antics of squirrels preparing for winter
months provide light distractions.

The woods represent a natural cathedral
of subdued and emphatic life progressing
from season to season, enduring and, like
life, fraught with the unexpected turns of
happenstance and fortune. We, like the
creatures of the forest, are swept up in the
tides of natural form and function, action and
consequences. The tranquility we find there
a balm and a salve to heal self-inflicted and
historical wounds as in the final analysis
nature's entropy has the final word.