Life, And All That

They grow up, and heaven save us
from sullen, moody-broody, ultra-sensitive
teen-age girls who suffer exquisite pains
of self-pity because their anguished selves
are so perfectly underestimated, under
imagined, under-represented and
misunderstood, as egoistic, self-absorbed
insensitivity. It is satisfyingly heart-breaking
to the self-pitying drama queen to persuade
herself that her angst, her quarrel with the
unfairness of it all - life and expectations
of conformity and moronic social mores and
anticipations and aspirational creative
achievement constraining pleasure and
leisure all too much to bear, coupled with
parental complaints of non-compliance and
the stress of school assignments transforming
simple existence into a miserable trial,
compounded immeasurably by peer cliques
and clashes. Life (sigh), is a distracted
bowl of uncompromising disappointment.
Is that all there is? Expectations turned to
ashes? Awaiting the ego-mollifying
observation: "You're divinely perfect."

Endurance

The sky, hugely dishevelled with bruised,
ragged clouds, wind whirling a high altitude
finally carries them off to release their
torrents elsewhere, leaving the valley without
its blast-furnace intermediary, the sun finally
blazing its long fingers of hydrogen radiation
baking all that lies below in a ferociously resolute
gathering of oppressively stifling heat to
dominate the mountain landscape.

The mountain stream embracing the stony
fissures that have carried it down the
mountainside for aeons, from the arid steam
of boiling contact, entices birds and insects to
its cool spray rapidly evaporating through
its passage, constantly renewed. Overhanging
trees, tenaciously clinging with shallow roots
to sparse soil embedded in bedrock, respire
and add restorative, inadequate shade
to relieve heat-exhausted wildlife.

Immense granite boulders, elephantine
in colour and size, long since tumbled in an
ancient rockslide, rest massively on the
granite ledges of the mountainside. Huge
fallen trunks bridge the gap from stream to
rocky bank. A northern thrush sings its
faith in tomorrow. The heat, intense in its
fiery fervour, meeting the stream, sends
vapour rising in a shimmer of distorting
waves of fantasized mountain imagery.

Elegy

Overnight, an amazing spark
of genius visited my mind at rest,
piquing my languid muse to suddenly,
feverishly prod me into an awareness
of the possibilities in time and
opportunity forfeited to the nightly
abandonment of creative impulse.

Awakening to the dark stillness of the
early hours, my mind captured
brilliant expression and the poetry of
languaged imagery spilled into being,
creating a lilting, lovely poem, destined
to be captured, ready-made for
proud collection on the morrow.

Morning came, and creative
genius dissipated, dissolved
into a perplexing, empty disclaimer.
I sit, confounded and forlorn, with
a bitter-sweet taste of triumphant
remembrance of joy, incapable of
dredging into recall the leading line
of perfect prose to link what followed
to proud conclusion. That perfect
poem, never to be retrieved.

Suffer The Children

Too young for words, the child's face,
within its craggy, over-sized skull, seated
on its scrawny neck emits a constant,
pained whine of dire needs unmet,
his pinched, dark features etched in a
rictus of pain. His mother, herself in a
state of starvation, can do nothing for her
severely malnourished infant. Her other
children, older, just as miserably
malnourished, are silent, their eyes
long since reverted from pleading to
deeply blank, expectations fled in the face
of their grim reality. They do her bidding,
lift one tired, swollen, bleeding foot after
the other in their desperately slow flight
from war zones, from the arid, persistent
drought, from their sickly cow's and goat's
fallen, bone-protruding carcasses.

The children's dull, dark skin, covered
with sores and the dust of their long journey
stretches over their swollen, starved bellies;
absent the merest padding of flesh on their
fragile limbs. Flies buzz about their hollow,
suppurating eyes, the children too languidly
disinterested to lift emaciated arms
to dispel the disease carriers.

Save The Children, Oxfam, UNICEF,
and Doctors Without Borders issue
daily condition updates on the plight
of these food-migrants, bemoaning a world
indifferent to their plight, sadly moved
but become immune to the recurring
misery, leaving the indigent so marginalized,
vulnerable to calamitous extermination;
a levelling of the world's population, of
those incapable of helping themselves,
succumbing to the Three Horsemen of
the Apocalypse: War, Famine and Death.

Primal Elements

First there was searing heat, the sky
an open, roaring crucible of flaming energy,
roasting everything below its pellucid throned
domain, in which swam few clouds, the
atmosphere dipped in humidity, rays of
powerful light and cell-destroying integrity
radiating relentlessly in an all-encompassing
arc of resolute majesty aloofly reigning.

While the sun flung its fierce flaming
fingers of hydrogen upon the Earth, violent
winds whipped themselves into a frothing
frenzy, darting about the landscape,
ushering through the incandescent sky a vast
procession of black, booming thunderheads,
creating a contusion of sound and action,
heat and humidity starkly illuminated through
the gathering darkness by lightning sheets
spread over the heavens, rife with
commotion and the strife of primal,
oppositional elements shattering peace.

The Corrupt Corrupted

And the latest news is that (of course)
news of the world is now the late
unlamented tabloid News of the World.
Its owner and trusted editors
dedicated to revealing all the news
unfit to print by means unfair and
decidedly foul, find it exceedingly
expedient to declare wholeheartedly
their most profound regrets: "sorry".

It has indeed been a sorry spectacle
to witness political, social and
security elite stumbling their way
to utterly unconditional,purple-prose
outrage at the immoral, illegal,
imprudent and horribly inconvenient,
irritating malfeasance undertaken
in the interests of scooping tawdry
sales worthily-shocking tidbits.

The corporation, a powerful influence
whose funding and support so many
relied upon to achieve success was
feared, feted and ferociously favoured
by Britain's movers and shakers
courting the influence that aided them
admirably to mount prominence, position.

Dissolved, all, in a scandalous series
of revelations, of ambition unloosed
and prattling lips unsealed to irrevocably
link their endeavours with shoddy,
shady morals condemning all in an
acid bath of public censure, gossip
gone berserk, breaking helter-skelter
into the conspicuous realm of reality.

Handle With Care

She has become a family heirloom.
No one remembers life without her.
Not least our 15-year-old granddaughter
whom she handily pre-dated in this
household by four privileged years
of devoted care and attention.

She is still herself, self-possessed,
distantly aloof, aristocratic,
highly intelligent, a living reproof
to those who insist awareness and
practical sense exists in limited-
to-absent quantities in our
prized canine companions.

These days of breathless uncertainty
she glides like a dark-hued wraith
through our shared abode whose
every crack and corner is seared into
her brain no longer dependent on neural
transmission of sight and sound.

Though her dark coat is now threaded
silver-grey she moves as elegantly as of
yore, needing only a guiding, gentle tug
on soft harness, as we lead. She is like
unto delicate porcelain, treasured for its
aged beauty, the pleasure taken in its
presence. A rare treasure, dearly held.

Too Much To Ask?

Patience is a virtue, but it is not one
of hers. She has wanted, oh so much
to be chosen, but patience was severely
wanting and in desperation she did
the choosing, impulsively, seeing no
need to hesitate, deliberate, weigh
the value and the potential she was
drawing into her wanting life.

Her choices were many, each one
in its time proving insufficient unto
the day and of her needs. She needs
someone to admire her, value her,
cherish her, protect her from life's
random, threatening vagaries. Is that
too much to ask of Dame Fortune?

Evidently so, for those she chose in
a lifetime of serial pursuits and mutual
accommodation proved incapable of
stirring within her the gladness of heart
that would result, she knew of a certainty,
were they to have dedicated themselves
unswervingly to her well-being in a
tandem of unrestrained, caring love.

She casts them off, one by one, coldly
appraising their failures, then sweeps
feverishly about for newer prospects,
one for whom her future was promised
and the choices become narrower
with age and she despairs of a finality that
will leave her alone, devoid of the life
companion whose absence she mourns.

Just, after all, someone to appreciate
her unimpeachable qualities, someone
to pine for her presence, someone to love
her and understand her needs. Someone
to dedicate his life to sharing hers.
Someone to cherish and be in turn
cherished. Is that too much to ask for?

Woodland Shelter

We hurried ourselves along to
enjoy our woodland hike, to
avoid predicted warnings of heavy
thunderstorms. The sky already
thick with thunderheads and a
stiff wind shuffling them along
we took our chances and set out.

Blue-flowering chicory and
tiny-petalled Queen Anne's lace,
bugleweed and buttercups,
fleabane and daisies featured
their bouquet presence as we
descended the woodland ravine.

The clanging thrum of a pileated
woodpecker, its primal focus on a giant
hollow pine echoed through the wood.
But another, unidentifiable sound as of
two birds discussing the weather puzzled
as we located an owl and its offspring among
the limbs and leaves of opposite trees.

They were mute, as their presence
was noted, one peering down at us,
confident we posed no threat, then
resumed their intimate musing. The
rain descended, thunder booming, and
the canopy of oak and birch, maple as
poplar, bass and ash offered brief shelter.

The Garden Triumphs

The garden, with a mind of its own
at the best of times, has launched
itself into independence, scorning
my fruitless efforts to keep it neat
and tidy, free of unwanted visitors.
I must, I tell myself, exert my
authority, it is my garden, after all.
Is it? the garden sneers.

As though to spite me, the garden
welcomes and beckons aphids, slugs
caterpillars, worms and (horrors!)
earwigs and lily beetles to creep among
its beauties preferring the au naturel
appearance of torn and nibbled leaves
and petals. Clever weeds, mimicking
the very look and growth pattern of
my plants encouraged to invade.

I have been remiss, I groan,
permitting free reign to run amok.
Everything has become untidily
rampant. Excessive growth must be
tamed, snipped back to manageable
proportions. Mistress Nature, however,
has no intention of accommodating
my guilt-laden, stricken resolve.

Yesterday, secateurs in hand, my
determination wilted pitiably in the
overheated atmosphere as rivulets of
sweat saltily stung my eyes halting
the proceedings. And today as I
resolutely set out to weed the garden,
thunder rolled and lightning alternated
with darkness as torrents of rain
sent me swiftly houseward.

Bringing Comfort

The Ethiopian-Canadian woman
who has embraced me, expressed
her interest in me as a person from
another culture and experience,
has told me of her concerns and
fears for her extended family left
behind, the dangers that they face
through tribal strife, malnutrition.

She greets me like an old friend
whenever I enter the Salvation Army
thrift shop she travels hours toward
from where she lives. The softness in
her voice, her tender smile. She is,
in fact now, an old friend for she has
prayed for me and mine, over the years.

I know this; she has assured me that
this is so. She, a good-hearted, hard
working immigrant who has known
fear and privation, and I, a second
generation, privileged Canadian of a
vastly different ethnic background; our
common humanity binds and blinds us
to the background of differences.

She it is who seeks to bring comfort,
trust and a soothing voice of universal
care to others, her own concerns
baked in a hard crust of experience
set neatly aside, compartmentalized
for the moment in quiet emotional
synthesis bringing her qualities of
warm humanity to rescue others.

Love and Marriage

It's true, that old adage:
"nothing ventured, nothing gained"
but in the doing you ventured to
exploit another person's need
and you gained the epiphany
that you'll remain uncommitted,
after all. Simply put, you're
an unprincipled, egoistic jerk.

Strange, how often that kind
of thing happens, the self-assured
breaching the defences of the
self-doubters, breezily challenging
their hesitation, and when it
becomes abundantly clear that
emotional transfer hesitates on the
cusp of success, the egoist withdraws.

Taken again, by the shock of
social facade lacking depth, with
her own nakedly needy self revealed
and stricken by the casual shrug of
disposal, her anguished self-doubt
deepens into despondency and
despair. Not your concern;
you can remain friends.

The mystery of it all reflects
the puzzle of the conundrum that
an erstwhile suitor need not possess
superior character. Women will
accept and yearn toward emotional
companionship. Not quite what the
male had top of mind. Such gender
matches do exist; meeting is elusive.

Heaven's Gate

The life we live is the only one
we will experience; best
to get it right, if we can.
We're assured we are all
imbued with free will;
choices and their consequences
ours alone. Are they?
Fortune and circumstances then
notwithstanding, we must be
responsible, ipso facto,
for what our life becomes.

And we with it. Those choices?
When we felt it best to embrace
chance, opt for the challenge,
alter the equation, and steered
unerringly toward manifest destiny
then discovered, shocked and
disconsolate, that the beckoning,
shimmering finger of fate was really
a provocative tease that did not
mean to honour its promise and
our naively uncompromising trust.

We have learned a life lesson that
there is a heaven and it represents
our heart's desire which through
diligent search and application we
will ultimately claim as our entitled
birthright. But wait: Hell lingers patiently
backstage to enter and settle us within the
depths of despair and grief as fortune grips
the glittering evanescence of heaven to
tear it from our grasp, inviting
discordance to claim sovereignty.

Ontario Summer Highway

Ontario highways in the
heat and glare of the summer sun,
set fire the medians, with the
blaze of purple loosestrife, the
fragrance of roadside meadows
with the dangling pink floral
clusters of milkweed, the
white petals of daisies,
lacy-white conceit of
Queen Anne's lace,
perky-pink of lupins,
sinister threat of red baneberries,
the purple presence of viper's bugloss,
radiant yellow of buttercups
returning the reflected
courtesy of the sun.
Hawkmoths and butterflies,
leaf hoppers and craneflies
converge on the offerings.
Above, a flight of ducks,
cresting a gentle wind.

Ruin

The wall stands
on the Ontario landscape
rough grey granite
drywall . . . no mortar
gluing its oneness
hints of a fireplace.

Now the underbrush intrudes
forest pushing back memory
birds loop the lonely air
and forest creatures
shelter under its shadow.

It could be the
ruins of Ilium
of a Minoan palace
or even Dresden. The
causes as diverse as
a wooden horse . . .

. . . Santorini
or Allied bombers. This
wall speaks of the
inevitability of time
flux wrought by nature
by the nature of man.

Ruins. (Photo - Matthew Farfan

On Meeting

Well . . . it's true
I know you
your insides
speak to me
through words
. . . uncareful
and trusting
yet it is only through
these words
exulting hallelujah!
I've found you
that I see you.

. . . . . Is
that really you
is that who you are
sitting there
calmly dissecting ideas
becoming engorged on fact
face a stranger's?

Is that familiar mind
hiding behind that
sphinx-like head
those pale grey eyes
. . . . careful now
unlike the exuberance
of your written word?

. . . . Tell me
what does that strange
smile mean? and what
does the calmness
of those eyes envisage?
Can you see me
here behind this face?
Do my eyes refuse
to reflect
familiar words?

Interlude

I offer you
hospitality
of a rare and
guileless intent.

Come to my house
and share with me
a splendid
a queenly repast

prepared by
my very own
porcelain hands.

This nutbrown duck
in my oven;
breathe its
rare invitation.

Friend: I
present myself
on a gleaming
silver salver.

And when you tooth
that crisphide morsel
. . . guard for slivers.

My Troybird
Odysseus bequeathed
antiques a painted decoy.

Some Things

Some things are
never forgotten
become recalled
triggering response
and childhood flashes
before unready eyes.

The child terrified
of the sterile
unsmiling unknown
of the hospital
is drugged to oblivion
yet still hears
voices as from the
watery depths of an
endless ocean.

Recalled
an adult
pressed in on all sides
by moist hurried bodies
becomes anesthetized
tunes in to herself
hears voices
thin, strained
from that vast distance
of unquiet
alienation.

Looking For Roscoe

As summer days go, it's a
true scorcher, all right,
nary a whisper of wind
and the sun sitting high and
regal, lording it over the
vast blue, unclouded sky.

The very air suffocates in
the humid, breath-stifling
aura of summer's dog days.
Long forgotten the icily frigid
days of peak winter when
warmth seemed unattainable.

There is some relief to be had
within the haven of the forest
environs with its wide ribbon of
stagnant, turgid water, where
birds fly low, looping the air to
catapult low-hanging branches.

Above, riding a bicycle on the
forest trail, a dark, thick-set man
not to be met at such a solitary
secluded place, frantically searching
for his wayward, relief-seeking
brown, heat-exhausted dog.

The Hasty Tongue

We are never so blind or as blindingly
blameless as when we mortally offend
others to whom we broken-heartedly
attribute our own failings in communication.
While you may dismiss vituperative bile
as an unfortunately unguarded lapse in
social decorum, the hapless target
understands it to be a painful, albeit
fortuitous warning of a potential future.

That hasty tongue, eager to inflict
emotional pain upon others to teach the
lesson that you will not be trifled with at
the unwary offender's expense, overlooks
your propensity to take offence when none
was intended. That damning temperament
and blistering tongue warped by your
defensive ego will be your final epitaph.

It will deliver you to the fate you fear as
you slide weeping, wailing and blaming,
friendlessly into a bleak and lonely future.
Listen my dear, tart is piquant; acid is toxic.
But you're no slouch, you know all that, and
more. You simply cannot equate all this
with your open, trusting, innocent character.

Why did I not speak earlier, before your
splenetic urges became habitual? There was
no 'before'. I did, on occasion, make that
attempt, however feeble, over the years
and to no avail. And I lack the courage to
pursue it now. I too quail with terror before
your seemingly unappeasable rage. And,
my dear, I weep, inconsolably for you.

The Green Canopy

The sun glories in the afternoon's
cloudless sky bestowing its powerful
radiation of energy and heat on a
summer-panting landscape of green.
All is still in the woods, grateful for a
gentle breeze, lightly swaying leaves.

Yellow loosestrife, buttercups and
daisies, purple cowvetch and fleabane
line the verdant corridors of bass, oak, pine,
sumac and spruce. The bright blossoms
of thimbleberry promise plump pink
late-summer berries for the picking.

A stream is stopped at low trickle, closely
dammed by an impenetrable fortress of
forest detritus, carried along on the high
tides of copious rainfalls, washing branches,
twigs, rotted stumps and clay banks down
the hillsides and into the forest stream.

The deep open gash in a tall old pine
no longer serves as an owl nest. The
fledgling now gone, feathers and flight
finally attained under anxious scrutiny
and patient tutelage of its parents. No
longer does its strange mewling hoot
of a cry cling to the green canopy.

Hazy Summer Days

It is the haziest of lovely summer
days, the sun and the clouds
treating the sky above, the landscape
below to alternating games of shy
and gentle peek-a-boo. Butterflies
lazily graze the tops of shrubs
and bees dip into floral pollen.
From neighbours' yards come the
sounds of water, children, exuberant
expressions of unadulterated joy.

I wander in fresh delight of my garden
revealing its daily gifts from nature to me.
My very own prized and hidden places where
treasures abound to suddenly, surprisingly,
so tenderly and mischievously leap into
view like children invested in exciting
themselves by gaining delighted notice of
doting grandparents through brilliantly
audacious exploits to burnish their image
in the fond eyes of their fervent admirers.