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.

"We Will Remember Them"

Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in downtown Ottawa.

Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen

Austerely solemn, in an austere month, this
11th hour of the 11th day of the Eleventh month,
winter-coat-clad Canadians assemble to honour
their battle veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces
who answered the call to duty on behalf of the
free world's longevity, as we live it to this day.
The singing of Oh Canada, to accompany the
Ottawa Children's Choir, then the sombre play
of The Last Post. As the clock tower of the
Parliament Buildings strike 11, a cannon burst.

From Flanders Fields to the fields of poppies
thriving in Afghanistan, the old soldiers,
physically desiccated, and the stern young faces
of current military, amidst the wailing of the
bagpipes and the volley of cannons, all testament
to the solemnity of the occasion. The Cenotaph,
that proud memorial of a proud nation towers
over the dense gathering under a wide, blue sky
where a squadron of planes perform a flyby
and then return, thundering under the sun.

Canada's new Governor General officiating,
a grave address by Brig.Gen. Forces Chaplain
in both official languages. The bright red poppy;
respect in solemn commemoration pinned over
the heart. The national flag proudly waving
against the broad blue of the sky; the tradition of
wreath-laying commences; first that of the
Mothers of Canada for their sacrifice, the
penultimate, mourning their dreadful loss.

Parliamentarians, diplomats, the Armed Forces
branches and elite, representatives of foreign
countries, civil organizations, the youth of the
country; all present and accounted for. The
beautiful, uplifting melody of children's sweet
voices raised endearingly in chorus after chorus
of hymns and paeans to the search for universal
peace despite the dreadful, soul-destroying
urgencies of war imposed upon the world through
the overarching venal ambitions of tyrants,
dictators and power-hungry psychopaths.

The singing children's red-clad figures a note
of evanescent hope and clarity, ascending to a plea
for the sanctity of life, the sanity of live and
let live; a symbol of Amazing Grace, amid the
cannon fire salutes. The Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier blanketed by fiery-red poppies of
remembrance, and the regiments march by.

"I Will Pray For You"

It must surely have been so very
difficult for her to adjust to life in
this northern-latitude Western country,
so at variance with her birthplace, her
origins with its tribal influences, ancient
culture, civil unrest, poverty and violence.
She doubtless lives in relative poverty
here, too, but she is well fed, and clothed
and housed and a pensive smiles lingers
always on her proud old, dark lips; her
eyes alive with a zest for life and an
interest in all that surrounds her.

Where am I from? she asked, years ago,
already wise to the Canadian reality, built
upon the steady historic migration of
restive, downtrodden and uprooted people
to these vast and prosperous shores
promising a future of freedom and
opportunities to those seeking refuge and
personal advantage. This woman, once
deformed by hunger and deprivation, has
adapted happily. She attends her church
regularly for, she has informed me, when she
had nothing else, she had hope, in her faith.

She travels long, wearying distances on
crowded city buses to her work at this
suburban Salvation Army thrift shop,
through seasonal weather conditions unknown
in sub-Saharan Africa. She endures what we
all do, and more, much more. But she remains
sincerely invested in concern for others; for
example, me, and my loved ones. She asks
always, solicitously, of my familial concerns.

"I will pray for you", she tells me tenderly,
beaming her incomparably beneficent smile,
even as she knows my roots, so unlike her own,
and that her belief in the divine is not in the
remotest shared, my good friend, by me.

Freeze Me! If You Can

Why feel sad on such a fair day? Yesterday's
deep cloud overcast obscuring the sun has
dissipated and the sky is wide and blue
gracefully illuminating the landscape below.
This morning the pair of cardinals that sing us
awake of spring mornings silently returned.
Their bright scarlet plumage glancing from tree
branch to fence, to leafless shrubs, a moving
feast for our summer-mourning eyes.

Bright, our otherwise-bleak garden, from the
rays of the late fall sun, closed for the season,
in a bell-like clarity. The honeysuckle vine,
almost leaf-denuded, defiantly sets its last pink
bloom. The bergenia refuse to permit their crisply
colourful leaves to shrivel. All the heucheras
with their variously pale chartreuse, pink,
green and gold scalloped leaves remain dedicated
to the preservation of form and freshness.

The hydrangea vine, even as the last of its
leaves crisply brown fall to enrich the soil, sets
its buds for spring awakening, and the corkscrew
hazel, no slouch, does the very same, dangling
fuzzy pods. The rose canes have been cut back
and capped with snow-white cones; headstones
in this garden cemetery. Bright red berries
dangle from the weeping crabapple, gaily
inviting migration-tardy birds' attention.

Sad Demeter, standing before our dining room
windows, eyes downcast, is deep in thought of
her daughter Persephone languishing the winter
months in the sere Underworld of Hades. And the
gargoyles on our porch impishly taunt the
coming winter season; freeze me! if you can....

Sigh, House Cleaning Day

The sky is clear, this brisk icy day that
dawned with roofs scaled in silver-white
frost. Few light, billowing cloud wisps
waft across the great blue expanse of sky
to shield our home from the warming sun.
Without its glowing presence, this
large-windowed house in its northern
latitude feels as deserted of warmth
as a heritage-stuffed mausoleum.

A serendipitous concurrence of sun
and natural light, this house-cleaning day.
To entertain me as geared with tools of
housekeeping I flit about this place,
dusting, mopping, vacuuming, washing
oh-so-many floors. The work made
infinitely lighter by exposure to the
familiar endowments and embellishments
ornamenting our aesthetic vision and
utilitarian household needs.

Stained glass windows wink the sun's
passage throughout this home, where
the homeowner laboured to create colour
light and evanescent beauty. Paintings
festooning the walls bespeak a lifetime
dedicated to the delights of discovery
and budgeted acquisition. The comforts we
enjoy of a privileged and earned abode.

This has been our passion to pursue
and surround ourselves with a whimsical
yet classical presence reflecting the timeless
value of creativity, workmanship and
artistic expression. When the sun lights
this interior even the curatorial labour
dedicated to tidy comfort becomes easeful
and a delight to perform, as though engaged
in a weekly inventory protocol, brimming
with amazingly unanticipated gifts.

Mighty Small

He's a mere mite of a fellow, but he
thinks he's mighty powerful. Imbued with
a classic Napoleonic Complex, though he's
no pompous little slick-haired general,
hand tucked into waist-coated uniform,
yearning to be an emperor commanding
vast dominions. No, this little fellow just
has the courage of his convictions and he
is convinced he is the vastly entitled
princeling of our modest household.

All things come to him who elaborates
his expectations, and the sturdy little
jackanapes makes it quite clear that in
the companionable relationship that arose
between canines and humans, it is the
superior intelligence of the dog that
ensures he is the leader, while the biddable
human slavishly hastens to do its bidding.

One should hasten to clarify that the
dignity of the power struggle succumbs
to the logic of inverse proportion; the more
minuscule the size of the dog, the more
assured the incomparably larger human is
assured to docile agreement to domination
by the dog. Rather Napoleonic, after all.

Recollection

They are ours alone, and we guard them
carefully, fiercely. Memories are the matter
of a life perceived, deeply embedded in our
consciousness; they pose as the life we have
lived, but that is often illusory. We must have
our memories for they reflect what we are,
certainly what we have become, as a result of
experiences and stimulating exposures, although
being emotionally fallible, interpretative acuity
of remembrance and fealty to reality are
often distorted to suit our demanding needs.

We may have shared exposures but the
idiosyncrasies of our characters create a
vastly different reception, impression and
long-standing recollection seen through the prism
of our individual needs. We delude ourselves into
believing what we feel we must. It is as though
we inhabit a parallel universe; one consisting
of awkwardly unuseful memories - the other we
clasp close to our emotional fulfillment,
explaining to ourselves why we are as we are.

Any confusion that may result, or inconveniently
disparate withdrawals other make from the
bank of coeval-shared memory can be hastily
discounted, for who knows our memories better
than we ourselves? If that translates to ample
reason to fondle grudges, so be it. When the
memories have been embellished to reflect
handsomely they serve their purpose. Dredging
deep within our psyches to recover evidence of
cause and effect is fraught with the weight
of ego yes, the imperatives of deceit and need.

Our Eminently Singular Friend

He is small, almost bedraggled in
appearance, but bold as none of his
peers are. They, like him, are black,
but sleek and uniformly plump, well
prepared in this seasonal-transition
period to face the rigours and food
shortages of the oncoming winter
months. It is his humble appearance,
coupled with his brash courage that
has garnered our deep admiration.

We think of him as the woodland
brigand in whom we have invested
high hopes for survival for yet another
year, despite his handicap. The fur over
his truncated stump of a tail has grown
almost measurably since this time last
year, but it remains as it was, sparse,
and tipped with distinguishing white.

We are prepared, in our daily
woodland walks, to be suddenly
accosted, as he appears seemingly
from nowhere. Clearly, he awaits our
quotidian habit. How he deduced it is
we responsible for leaving peanut caches
is quite beyond our ken, but he has
identified the source, and since the first
occasion when he confronted us directly
for his due, he has snared our hearts.

Undeterred, unfazed by the constant
close presence of our little dogs, he
approaches, even responds to his name,
or our coaxing voices, to stand expectantly
before us, vestigial tail twitching. Time and
again throughout the course of our
dalliance over miles of trails, he tracks us
and greets us with assured anticipation.
He has generously privileged us.