One of Your Age

,

Madam, the good news
is that the retina of
your right eye is in
impeccable condition
for one of your age.
The bad news, I fear,
is that, unfortunately,
there is another stage-four
tear in the retina
of your left eye,
juxtaposed to the
scar tissue from your
surgery of eight months back
which was not present
when we examined you
several months ago.

Performance

His light and spacious store-front
office presents as a peculiar place
of professional business. Behind the
reception desk, a soft-spoken young man
adept at putting clients at ease, at the
preliminary ministrations of technical
gear, conducting retinal scans,
meticulously completing paperwork.

The ceiling in the large reception area
festooned with model planes, dirigibles,
colourful miniature hot-air balloons.
Clocks in every conceivable shape: octagonal,
wags-on-the-wall, regulators, bracket,
gingerbread, talk and tick the minutes of
waiting time, chiming Westminster hours.
Interspersed, an array of gilt and silver
mirrors of every conceivable size, shape.

People are seated, awaiting appointments,
on petit-point and leather, wood-carved
and rattan-embellished, antique dentist
armchairs and more, selecting from
among colour-plated tomes on Egyptology,
space travel, cosmology, flora and fauna of
the world, gardening whimsies and aquaria
as reading-and-ogling material. The office
clearly appointed by someone with a flaming
sense of humour, refusing to take life too
lightly, nor too seriously, but just so.

Reflecting, in fact, the physical flamboyance
and tangential mind-tics of their host, the
irrepressible Doctor Brown, Eyedoctor.ca
who eventually reveals himself as a study in
casual delusional self-awareness; tall and
gangly, slicked-back hair, high, gaunt cheekbones
and gravelly, sombre voice revealing the
high-tension-wire act of a circus performer.
To whose ministrations patients entrust
their health, humour and vision.

Pensively Anticipating

Red sky at night, observers delight.
This flaming vision does not reflect
but as a late summer sky with
daylight hours waning, autumn
stealthily on the prowl, overtaking
humid, lazy, hazy summer nights;
much too, much too unhappily soon.

Nothing short of dismaying, that
we cannot forbid nature from her
immutable routine, the sun occupying
a different place in the heavens and
we in the northern latitudes have no
choice but to loosen our mind's
grip on our short, elusive summer.

In the garden, flowers still bloom,
fewer in display, wan where they
were once gregariously, ebulliently gay.
The goldfinches and hummingbirds
preparing for their long, diurnal
southward flight leaving a gap of
regret among those who remain.

Shorter days begin to gather into
mournful plenitude, the tired garden
left to rest under a blanket of snow,
our world transformed from brilliant
colour to frigid pellucid skies, churning
winds and bone-cracking icy nights
of tediously prolonged duration.

Liberating Libya

Civil countries for whom democracy
and human rights are the gold standard
of relations between people and their
governments patronize the glorious idea
of assisting struggling populations of the
world to achieve their right to liberty
and equality as a birthright ideal.

Aligning themselves with the rebel
forces seeking to unseat their intolerable
inherited tyrant, NATO helpfully engages
in bombing and strafing the regime's
military might their own member
countries provided for sale to the
tyrant, their amenable, erstwhile ally.

The country becomes mired in blood,
mercenaries are well paid to do the
regime's bidding, millions of indigent
foreign workers are trapped, victimized,
targeted, desperately fleeing the carnage
that government troops and rebel
militias alike inflict upon themselves
and the country's hapless civilians.

The dictator, his enriched family, cronies
and allies along with his devoted military
finally routed, tribal antipathies expressing
the cultural mores of hatred and violence
are unleashed beyond disciplinary advice.
The champions of justice and people's
freedom look on in dismay as triumph they
aided to reality is expressed in candid
displays of brutish clan exuberance.

The rebels fire volleys into the air,
carelessly brandishing new weaponry
from unguarded depots to augment
their own. As rebels torch and loot and
destroy, illustrating the joy they take in
freedom - at long last - this reflects their
entitlements of victory as do the atrocities
they commit in their violent zeal to match
government forces. The punishment nicely
enabled and ferociously meted out.

The Summer-Weary Garden

The garden, our well-tempered companion
throughout the summer months, generously
offering up fragrance, drama, colour and
ongoing expectations in its humble way,
is beginning to exude the inevitable end-of-season
weariness. Its aerial visitors have become fewer
in number and delightful variety. Already,
at night, the garden hears their wings and
chirps signalling the southern migratory journey,
preparing to abandon it to cooler days and nights.

Late-summer bloomers like Japanese anemones,
Chinese lanterns, asters, turtleheads, third-wind
roses, purple loosestrife, black-eyed Susans
and coneflowers still glory the garden, but the
ornamental trees and shrubs are tumbling their
foliage in growth excess, longing for surcease and
the inevitable rest that winter allows them. Lawns
and borders are stiff with discarded cones, heavy
with pitch, and needles turning green grass to an
orange-overlaid resting coverlet, inviting frost.

Lucy - In The Sky - With Diamonds

At the Milky Way no less, a mere
4,000 light years from another
near constellation in the vast
nearness of the ineffable Firmament.
Imagine, a diamond planet, no less.
A spinning, brilliant pulsar of a
planet, pluckily challenging Jupiter,
one of our Solar System's giant
gaseous planets, for sheer mass.

But consider: polar opposites,
one comprised of overheated
insubstantially stolid gas, whereas
the other of high density carbon, a
splendid, sparkling diamond planet,
scintillating, tossing off plumes of
rainbow-refracted light. Lucy
is alertly agog, in hot pursuit of glitter.

Ask Me

Want my opinion? I'd be
only too willing to contrive
responses that may satisfy
and please your enquiry, for
you may have noted, I am eager
to please. Like almost everyone
else, I want to be liked, my
presence sought out, my
expressions appreciated. I
will not ruffle feathers by
introducing new ideas for I am
committed to accepting yours,
to give honour to your thoughts
and perceptions. I am
dedicated to the pursuit of
your kindly regard, determined
to present as your friend,
for, you know, your vote of
confidence in my promises
means much to me, at that
ultimate popularity contest
venue, the polling booth. So,
go ahead, do it; ask me.

From the Bedroom Overhead

When they were young
and always underfoot
they were encouraged
to entertain playmates
in their very own rooms.

All that noise, the
childish exuberance
their zest for life
made their parents
nervous and upset.

Now that the young
are grown and become
nubile, they entertain
playmates in those
very same rooms.

Upsetting their parents
making them nervous
straining to hear
some reassuring sound
from the bedroom overhead.

The Gathering Gloom

The daytime sky chose to scowl darkly
all day, like an out-of-sorts bully
accustomed to having his way,
belligerent and swaggering,
intimidating hesitant souls not given
to self-confidence or asserting themselves.
We were not unduly impressed.

There are times when the wisest course
is simply to get on with things, ignore
the bully's threats when it seems
feasible to do so. And so, we did,
embarking on a woodland trail, there
exchanging assurances with unperturbed
residents of the green and thirsty arras.

An ever-more densely cloudburst
burdened sky preened its incipient power,
yet there were garden chores irresistibly
beckoning. Tomatoes, lusciously tempting
to the discriminating palette and palate.
And garden borders and beds grown
arrogant in displacing their neighbours.

All urgently in need of discipline, a
firm hand wielding spade and secateurs.
Soon, the work satisfactorily concluded,
a thunderous roll echoed, and lightning
offered brief brilliance in the gathering
gloom. Gathering together startled
companion dog and gardening tools, we
made haste to depart the scene.

Brief but immensely satisfying; the
mission to restore a semblance of
polite order to the established structure
and glowing colour of the garden well
accomplished, we abandoned the garden
to a welcomed draught. By all means
let the voluminous showers descend!

Overnight

The humped ghosts
of yesterday
peer through the
dim gloom
of night
edging into day
snow falling
thick as a
lover's promises
an incandescent halo
glimmering from
light standards
a refraction
stippling
the snow
reflecting the
barely limned moon
moving serenely
through overcast
as deep
as a rejected lover's
thoughts.

A Rare Courtesy

Tough is as tough does. The
elderly are no more helpless than
the young, setting out to make their
mark in the history of their lives.
Just as the value of the data
extracted relates to the input,
so too does one reap the benefits
at closure of what and how life
has been valued, lived, prioritized.

It is a rare courtesy to witness a
frail-appearing elderly man
chivalrously move toward giving
assistance to a female stranger of
like vintage, peer to peer, as coevals
having shared some manifestations
of an earlier social contract.

It is instructive to see the bored
disinterest of a young man
standing by, and the amazed
bemusement of an onlooking young
woman. The scenario, played out in
a local supermarket, where the
silver-haired woman stooped
to heave a 10-kilogram flour sack
from cart to check-out counter.

A voice behind her spoke: "Here, let
me get that for you". She straightened
to regard the elderly man and,
smiling, responded: "Thank you,
but I'm stronger than I appear",
as she resumed her action
and lifted the bag as intended.

Turning, to again thank the
helpful-minded stranger, a stricken
look crossed her face, noting the
man's two items. She apologized for
not inviting him through before her.
He, pleased no end, demurred and the
young in line behind them, blinked.

A Dousing Storm

The sky, heavy with clouds, some
slate-dark, others silver-white and
gossamer-threaded, afloat in a vast
ocean of blue, did not appear as
particularly threatening, but rather
as an invitation to venture under its
offerings of both sun and shade,
breeze-moderated and pleasant.

Spruce and pine have released their
sappy gum loaded into their late
summer dropped cones. Foraging
forest creatures have begun the ritual
of fall storage, shuttling seeds into
sustaining caches long before winter
hints at its inevitable arrival.

Water striders and dragonflies
skate the surface of the ravine's
heat-diminished creek. A brilliant
red streak slips among hemlock
branches as a cardinal's high, sweet
pitch is heard. Cue for a long, sullen
rolling threat from above as the blue
is suddenly consumed by a mass
of darkly-banked clouds.

Lightning streaks across the
landscape, and concerned gazes
turn skyward, shrug as the mass
moves off imperiously, sparing the
forest, and us, as dimmer echoes
of thunder drift their intent elsewhere
down the long forested valley.

Sunlight returns to send its brilliant
shafts to illuminate jewel weed and
asters, goldenrod and fleabane. A
woodpecker's staccato thrumming
punctuates the voices of chickadees
and nuthatches. Sudden wind-shifts
haul back dense clouds and darkness
overcomes as thunder overhead heralds
the imminence of a dousing storm.

Shattered Illusions

At three-score years, ten - and more
suddenly all those shallow illusions of
defying the years have dissipated,
collapsed, vanished, to reflect the
reality of presence as it is, not as
cherished facade. Never shy about
divulging my age, accustomed to
hearing the inevitable, gratifying
expressions of disbelief, for me
vanity had always seemed to triumph.

A busy, rewarding, sometimes
troubling few years of celebrating
life, occupying ourselves collaboratively,
coping with exterior assaults on health
and equanimity, complacency still
reigned, leaving scant time for
contemplating the passing years.

For they do pass, slipping from the
present to faded memory of times past,
seeking no one's assent. Then, a series
of spontaneous frontal close-ups with a
discreetly-used digital camera which
later viewing offended with its grotesque
and ego-assaulting verisimilitude.

Gaze fixed on the computer screen, one
image following on the other of a ghastly
parchment-furrowed face burdened with
years of concern, the inclination to smile
forgotten. Those faded eyes once deeply dark
and lively, now shallow pools over deep ponds
of forgotten distress. Below the entrenched
folds, taut, thin lips, sagging chin topped by
lifeless grey hair. Whose is that pained visage?

My Prized Reward

I do, you know, plant them, after all.
Using my aesthetic to determine
which plants would complement
one another. Imagining maturity,
spread, natural consanguinity,
colours and shades, formation - all
to visualize with a degree of accuracy
the final bouquet that will piquantly
present in our finished garden.

Full potential achieved, we then
satiate our appetite to view the
luscious beauty of their multi-petalled
exuberances, their obvious delight in
themselves nestled within the confines
of a garden bed, or border, or a
garden urn of classical design, or a
rude clay pot with no pretensions of
rivalling in beauteous, bountiful
appeal the flowers they so host.

A sour-minded cynic might remind
the gardener that after all, it is nature
to whom the kudos are owed, place
into perspective one's self-congratulatory
bragging of that special eye, the hours
devoted, the dedicated, pleasurable
retreat. I decline, however, to retire pride,
rendering all credit to the cultivated
plants, the season's opportunities,
ample sun and gentle rain.

Yet the tilling of the soil, its composting
enrichment, the storing overwinter of
corms and bulbs, heeding spring's
forgiving temperatures for seed
germination, careful and tender
planting, the nurturance to supplement
moisture, defend from insect and mould
infestations amply represent my investment.
The mature garden my prized reward.

Responsibility To Protect

They refuse to be diverted from their purpose,
recklessly seeking liberties they have never
enjoyed, foolishly believing this to represent
their basic human rights. What absurdity;
whatever gave them that spur to spurn the
legitimacy of their serene and regal ruler?
Tyrant though he is, he is their tyrant, inheriting
their future, to steer them unerringly in the very
direction his father took them to; what right to
presume as they do and demand respect?

In with the tanks, the regime's response
to peaceful protest requesting rights.
Sharp-shooters posted strategically
make short and accurate work of the
rally organizers. Those who exhibit the
brazen temerity and the tenacity to attend
rebel funerals pay dearly as their sombre
procession is bombed, strafed from above.

The muezzin calls to Friday night prayers.
Mosque-emerging faithful march in
ardent resolution to face down their
tormentors in a traditional Ramadan
ceremonial of defiance. From the seas,
their dictator's naval flotillas shell port
cities and Mediterranean waterfronts.

The message absolute: disperse, accept,
obey, for the army, navy and air force
will remain deployed in deadly opposition
to those who question the authority of
the state, sacrificing unarmed civilians,
children, the elderly, on the funeral pyre
of victory and strength of arms over revolt.

His Intellect

Let's face it, there is a vast gulf between
your strictly surface, facile kind of intelligence
and his far more deeply-rooted cerebral
function, amply evidenced by his lengthy,
thoughtful responses to your casual enquiries,
looking for a surface-skimming response
lacking depth, barely sufficing to
produce a depth of understanding.

For you, the need is to appear erudite,
a veneer of languid knowingness. Details
are irrelevant; the facade, the impression
gained becomes the goal, to impress
others with the quality of your mind
which in fact has no depth, no breadth,
an empty mirage, one seldom challenged
leaving reputation undeserved, intact.

For him, the challenge clearly is to
learn, explore, probe and attain a measure
of knowledge; a compulsive, inner-directed
personal imperative. The incorrigible
desire to know; no impulse, but a satisfying
urge adding value to a life of enquiry.
His scientifically questing mind forever
searching to expand the boundaries.

His elastic, curious, absorptive mind.
Your disdain of the care he takes to ensure
you fully understand the impact of his
responses, their measured detail, his
patient and informed explanations
speak volumes of your mental limitations
in the company of one who has none.

Who Are We To Presume?

The celestial clockwork of the Universe
moves to its natural, profound imperatives,
awing distant observers with the merest
hint perceived of the magisterial power
of its connecting, interwoven elements.

Hydrogen-fuelled sun flares disrupt
Earth's puny electrical systems, its satellites'
performance. The moon's phases impact
our tidal bores. We are second-upon-second
bombarded by atmospheric radiation.

Rare but deadly collisions between meteors
and our planet create immense concussions,
deep craters in Earth's crust, atmospheric
occlusion, revolving ice-age deep freezes and
widespread creature-and-flora extermination.

Our great experimental astro-physicists,
their hypotheses and formulas instructing
the science of comprehending Nature
and the Universe merely begin the ongoing
process that haughtily defies interpretation.

The night sky reveals the height and the
depth of the nearest Constellations in
our limited yet unfathomable Galaxy, a mote
in the uncountable numbers of same that
speckle space, that vast dark unknowable
of the limitless, timeless Universe.

My Grateful, Staunch Admirers

There are few who can boast, as I can,
of having an ardently appreciative audience,
a large base of those for whom my daily
appearance is profoundly important, those
whose undivided loyalty to me is palpable
and robustly evident, followers whose
preoccupation with my presence and the
essence of my being - and being there - is
of the most profound, extreme importance.

Note: I do not boast, though I could, for
I am simply stating the reality and my grave
responsibility to those for whom my presence
inspires adulation. I should also hasten to note
for the record that my admirers are no motley
crew; they represent not an undiscerning public
of celebrity-agog, quasi aristocrats, performing
'artists' and sport figures. They are rather,
austere-minded benevolent autocrats in their
own right, recognizing in me a special benefactor
whose pure altruism is beyond reproach.

These, my loyal followers, do not represent
as awkward, garishly-clad social misfits.
They pay mind to sartorial choices, eschewing
rude integuments for the classic appearance
of suited and furred elegance. They pay daily
homage to the wisdom of my years and my
generosity of spirit, sharing with them my
August presence as they gather to worship at
my feet, making haste lest they arrive tardily.

None of my followers fail to partake
of my offerings, declaring from surrounding
treetops their passionate approval of my
fleeting presence, my gifts to them, one and
all. Nature's aristocrats, they take flight,
they drive themselves to my quotidian
stroll amongst them, they politely lining the
woodland trails as I pass, doling peanuts.

Robins' Alarum

From a distance the repeated shrill
musical note impinges the atmosphere.
A song unfinished but obviously emitted
familiarly from a robin's throat. Might
it be, as is so often done, inviting rain
to release us all, albeit temporarily,
from this cloistered, cloying heatwave?

The distance is breached as we move
steadily forward on the forest trail,
our boots crushing fallen pine cones
sticky with sap. There is a detectable
note of shrill hysteria now in the
reiterated call and we strain our eyes
toward the canopy of leafy green.

Ah, there they are, a pair of gaudy
breasted robins indeed, and frantically
winging it from branch to branch in
some unseemly, un-robin display of
alarum. Become explicable, yet unusual,
when we raise eyes to a bare limb.

Where sits the large, dark, hunched
figure of an imperturbable barred owl,
who, sufficiently irritated, is not beyond
exercising its raptor's prerogative to
silence his fear-addled tormentors.

Wild Cultivating

Just as I am happily amenable
to share my garden treasures …
lilies and irises, heuchera and hostas …
with my neighbours, for their less
well-endowed gardens, so too was
the nearby forest generous with its
wildflowers, offering up to me
for my garden, trilliums and
foam flower, trout lilies and
good gracious! Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

They have made my garden prosper
in the spring, proliferating wildly,
profligate with their charming
offspring, and I now have a
veritable shaded meadow of
foam flower, shyer trilliums, but
multiple and GIANT Jacks. The
Jacks so robust they do not fade
into summer’s dog days, but
splendidly tall and proud, remain
steadfast summer garden sentinels.

Fingers of Dawn

The furtive fingers of dawn filter
through our open bedroom windows
to linger caressingly upon your sleeping
form, warm and comforting beside me.
You've thrown off the lightly draped
sheet, seeking stray coolness of any
wisp of fresh air that might ruffle
through on the moist, overheated
atmosphere of a late-summer night.

My gaze is drawn to your gently
illuminated face, cheekbones and
nose outlined in shadow and light. The
curve of your chest, rising in steady
respiration, the softly emphatic grace
of your arms, your shoulders, sturdy neck,
and hands crossed so casually over chest,
fingers curved in a suggestion of their
purposeful day-time manipulation of
hammer and saw, mower and spade.

The ambient light, mild gold and yet
gracious enough to withhold the
oppressive heat of the coming day,
sketches you in detailed strokes of
lively muscle and well-toned skin
though your beard is grey. Dawn's
waking light casts its glow, delineating
and illuminating the one who has lain
beside me for near to sixty years.

Does Anyone Care?

A riot police officer directs his colleagues to clear people away from a burning car in Clarence Road in Hackney. Photo: Getty Images

The hellfires of the dread Inferno
are not alight only in the Underworld,
from which bonfires of the vanities
of human desire, avarice and conceit
are cleansed in a conflagration of
these mortal sins, oh no indeed! One
thing has a tendency to lead to another;
assault and insult the populace, they
snarl, object, and the dry tinder fires up.

For there are communities the world over
where poverty of morals, human indignities
of bovine ignorance result in imbecilic citizens
boasting of "fun" to be had in mobbed
gatherings notified by brutish messages to
come along, join the gleeful mob in a frenzy
of looting, torching and any type of vile
and violent civil disobedience a truly
demented imagination can percolate.

Watch the civil authorities moan
in disbelieving dismay. Why, one might
think they haven't a clue that bored,
unemployed youth are apt to act out!
See the politicos wring their hands,
promising to solve and salve the
inequities and forgive all transgressions.

Look, police just standing by passively.
The hits they've taken have informed
them that witness to fire-bombing and
looting is acceptable, but riots ... definitely
not so. You there! Grab that flat-screen
set, those video games, the cellphones and
the track shoes, and just ... you know,
amble out - casually; no one cares.

Awaiting Relief

Sullen, steaming, stifling, just one of
those days the weatherman is loathe
to take responsibility for, which nature
speedily takes ownership of, seeming to
boast: Think this is hot? Wait for tomorrow,
and we do, we do, but of course hardly with
bated breath, albeit breathlessly. An
intolerable succession of heat-struck days
has left us anxious for weather relief.

Whereas those reporting atmospheric
conditions merely note, nature has an
assortment of teasing, tantalizing,
tormenting tricks at her disposal.
Chief among them, the imposition of
accelerated change. Seeking the comfort
of deep-forest shade by a cooling breeze-
rippled brook, the wooded canopy our
shelter from the wickedly searing sun,
we suddenly become vulnerable.

That gentle breeze at her behest
transforms monstrously to a ferocious
wind bending the masts of tall trees,
cracking off dry-heated limbs, ushering
in an instant deluge of large and
piercing rain drops assembled as a flood
from the suddenly-dark-ocean of the
sky, deluging the utterly deluded.

The Heat-Crazed Sun

No question, the heat-crazed sun
and high humidity qualify this as
one scorcher of a day. As it happens
this year, one such heat-box
summer of a dog-day's after another.
The clear water endlessly trickling
deep within the forested ravine
has become lackadaisical, winking
its way down the almost-parched
watercourse heavy with clay.

Goldenrod nods its deep yellow
plumes in an overheated wisp of
wind. Wild raspberries ripen into
fiery-red, sour-mouthed berries,
small and mean. Queen Anne's lace
flaunts its dry, aristocratic daintiness.
Cowvetch, asters, purple loosestrife
and brilliant sunflowers colour
the heat-struck forest understory.

A nuthatch nonchalantly vacates
its perch on a hoary old hemlock,
while a downy woodpecker bravely
assaults the trunk of a spruce;
nothing out of the ordinary on this
energy-sapping day where the furred
wildlife still scurry frantically about,
searching mysterious advantage.

Right of Natural Conquest

There were two kits sighted
fortuitously by an alert hiker,
splashing in the urban forest creek,
unconcerned with the interest of a
human. Where the young can be found
the adults will be concerned with
practicalities of existence.

Wildlife co-exists where it is
feasible in the near presence of
human settlement, and urban forests
represent their precinct, more than
it does a city dweller's. The creek
running through the damp, wooded
ravine is nature's own storm catchment
where the beavers, scoping for a new
home, assessed plentiful stands of
poplar, the lay of the land, and the
assurance of an ongoing water source.

The creek now no longer runs steadily
clear and modest in volume during
these summer days. It has become
bloated in a succession of stagnant
pools of still, standing water,
mud-filled and detritus-laden.

The industrious beavers have
demonstrated the nature of their
architectural environmental skills
and sensibilities. Theirs, proudly now
the turgid creek with its steadily rising
surface and collapsing banks; their
element, their possession by
right of natural conquest.

The Storm's Fury

The sky is sullen, lowering with
dark clouds captured by a succession
of jagged, bare peaks reluctant to
release them as though capriciously
finding comfort and purpose in their
brooding presence, finally agreeing to
their drifting departure only when they
have released their burden of rain
as thunder claps across the sky,
trapping all below in a monsoon of
wind, pelting bolts of lightning,
bellicose threats as clouds collapse.

The alpine flora sponge the pounding
rain, the silenced thrushes await
cessation, huddling below the tree line,
while massive boulders, balanced on
the edge of the stony slopes, long
separated from the spiny cliffs and
mountain colls turn darkly sinister,
hued thus by the rain, their tough
clinging lichens flourishing on their
drenched perches. Not a single
creature stirs in the storm's fury.

A Thundering Hercules

In the humid heat before dawn a
military, wide-bodied, heavy-lift aircraft,
a Hercules, bullied its way through the
sky, its low rumble sending waves of
sound through bedroom windows whose
occupants recognized the cause of their
awakening yet thought longingly of an
atmosphere thick with heavy rain,
thunder and lightning coursing the
heavens, nature's prerogative, not
humankind's primitive presumption
of hostilities and technology fueling
an ever-ready war machine...

Mountain Brook Trail

Here, yellow birch is king. Among them hemlock
and spruce, hung with mosses, lichen-lined bark
scrubbed by mountain ice and snowstorms, winds
that ravage, leaving the bleak vacuums of blowdowns.
There is an air of mystery and gloom in the ancient
forest, on the mountainside, along the rock and
boulder-strewn brook. Its voice rising and
diminishing, edging from a pounding basso profundo
to a light, fairy-tinkle as the clear, cold mountain
melt-water races downhill, spouting generous spray,
creating the atmosphere, damp and boggy-rich
with aeons of nutrients hosting bright green lacy
bracken, dogwood, wood sorrel, delicately lovely
orchids and lilies. Robins and Northern thrushes
embroider the air with their sweet, piercing calls.
Shafts of sunlight blaze from a cloud-gathering sky
observed through the forest canopy upon the remnants
of a shattered white birch on the forest floor.

Nature's Elemental Resilience

The ancient mountain valley site
enveloped by hemlock, spruce, pine,
oak and yellow birch, no longer virgin,
but of venerable height and girth,
thrives as a moss-laden, lichen-rich
haven for wildlife and the insect world,
all finding comfort in the humid
atmosphere of cool spray showering
from the icy-mountain spill through
its time-worn raceway of granite.

The thundering roar of the mountain
stream shattering the song birds'
melodies, the lacy filaments of sweet
piercing song rent through by the
rough, deep bass of the powerful watery
thrust, rampaging declaration of
strength capable of defeating the
geological integrity of permeable rock.
Curtains of glass-clear water spread
over the jutting rocky peninsulas under
the fierce, frothing gathering of the
stream's intense, unstoppable flow.

This place, with its primal elements of
gnarled tree trunks and interlocking roots,
glowing green ferns, the orb of the fiery sun
set high in the wide blue sky, the indomitable
march of mountains, gneiss-grey summits,
tumbled-sided rock slides, meltwater coursing
icy descent, presents as a divine creation
of perfect majestic beauty and might.