Bounteous Wisdom

Do not, ever, underestimate
the values lifestyles of the
comfortable elderly; more than
capable with years of experience
behind them, of exercising the
wisdom of those years. They
do not lack for entertainment,
avidly looking toward the week-end
offering of advertisement flyers.

At the breakfast table, the
house-delivered adverts that
deluge society are sorted, compared,
prices checked and re-checked,
special sales with enticing nuances
carefully noted; those flyers
representing keepers, set aside.

The creaky old bones settle nicely
within the family-sized van, deemed
by the wizened owners adequate for
their needs, and off they go, one driving,
the other persistently navigating, to
visit the shops on the route carefully
mapped to acquire their bargains.

Farewell

All the leaves have fallen, shrivelled
and rusted, from the Ash and the
Hawthorns. Those still in plentiful
numbers turning blush rose, orange
and gold are the Poplars, Maples and
Birch, creating confetti-like confections
on the undergrowth-barren floor of the
forest. Drought has spawned fewer fungi
and as autumn made its darker, cooler
entrance, the forest flora discreetly
made their season's exit. Leaving in their
wake that sere aspect, awaiting the
sleeping blanket of winter's snows.

The Golden Rule

Life has conspired against you
insofar as your personality
appears to have been preformed,
a gift to you from some chronically
unpleasant ancestor. Fortune,
however, may not be predetermined
as we are all invested with free will
and you have also been gifted with
intelligence of a sterling quality;
yet another genetic inheritance.

Those who know from experience
caution that honey attracts more
flies than does vinegar. It is never
too late to indulge in soulful introspection
to recognize that you have been remiss
in overlooking a basic requirement
of a pleasant character to attract
toward you those who have responded
to your bitterness by avoidance.

Only you can breach the gulf
between loneliness and the comfort
of friends. Family forgive where others
may not, but even they recoil in distress
before unexpected, episodic attacks
of rancid disdain expressed at times
of emotional strain. Much can be
overlooked when the balance
of moderation has its presence.

Like Stars At Night

Like a rural-dwelling child
waking into the darkness of
a still night, observing light
creeping into his bedroom,
throwing off his covers to
approach the window and,
chin resting on the sill,
presses forehead against the
pane to observe the random
lighted objects in the sky
with rapt attention at their
starry blinks and nods, I too
press my forehead, rest my
chin as instructed, like an
obedient child absent the
quest and curiosity, to witness
random flicks of light pass
before my afflicted vision,
and register their passing
presence albeit in a doctor's
office, testing my vision's
acuity, failing the test.

For The Plaintiff

Listen now, gentle suffering soul,
listen to me carefully. At risk
of offending, you leave me little
choice but to instruct you in the
niceties of sufferance convention.
I lay no claim to wisdom; I may
perhaps have experience where
you have not. Certainly my years
exceed yours, for what that may
signify: little or perhaps much.

You may feel it personally needful
to mournfully, remorselessly
regale others with your sadly wistful
countenance as a bid for soothing
compassion. If so, leave it at that.
Do not, my friend, continue to
complacently burden us with both
it and the tenderly related minutiae
of your miserable existence.

For here, my erstwhile friend, is
a truth: we all have our own sad and
weary burdens in life. We, all of us,
suffer in our own way for our very own
singular and painful reasons. Kindly,
therefore do not continue to prevail
upon others to pity you. Friend, do not
take a casual concerned query as license
to lacerate the hapless listener with
your all-subsuming tales of woe.

He Tells Us

Backpack straining under the weight
of forest litter from other people's
careless disposal, he strides easily
through the woods, a gentle giant
shod in 20-League boots, venturing
where most would never think to go,
eyes alert to the damning detritus
of a city population's endless waste.

His raspy voice booms as he greets
us, his huge form leaning against the
landscape. We speak of impending
fall, late by the calendar this year,
the incipient colour changes, shortened
days, and the oddness of the heated
humidity of this mid-September day.

His smiles, hearty guffaws, good
natured persona simply complement
his frequent forays to retrieve from a
burdened arras: armchairs, broken
bicycles, lawn ornaments, vehicle tires;
hoisting them and hauling them on his
back out of the precincts of the woody
green neighbourhood ravine.

We do tell him how much it is that
we admire his tenacity and endurance,
his struggle with the plight of an urban
forest. He grins, tells us the forest pays
tribute to his efforts, releasing to him
the many edible mushrooms his curiosity
and his omniverous palate enjoys.

About The Drama Queen

Petulant and studiously self-absorbed,
the veneer of her youthful sophistication
is dreadfully skin-thin. She poses and
preens, expresses anguish that she is so
little understood, sneers at her
presumed detractors; adults who fail
to take her histrionics seriously enough,
finding no humour in their wryly fond
observations about the Drama Queen.

Her response is revenge; swiftly unsubtle
and arrogantly brutal. A child's mind
in an adult image, struggling to find
herself in a world hostile to her unearned
expectations. She turns a cold eye, a
haughty demeanor on all who dare to
impugn her exceptionality; therein
lies the kernel of her survival, she feels.

Nature's Design

Neither lapsed time and trying intervals
of separation nor the relative but
inadequate yet joyful reunions can
quite compensate for absences that
love insists must be accommodated; that
ever-present dull ache oppressing the
psyche's acceptance refuses amelioration
finding itself instead in full rebellion.

Those brief episodes when I wait with
breath bated for your arrival and the
surprising, unexpected, visceral leap
of my heart reaching to touch yours
is rewarded by a smile only you emote
to melt the frozen longing set aside
in dutiful abeyance in your presence.

Our partings have many beginnings
that trickle through time to become
endings and you are once again away.
Your life once an integral part of mine
is now exclusively your own, a reality
to which you are happily adapted
through habituation and destiny. And
there I languish, incapable of
adjusting to nature's design.

Circling Gulls

The old engineering marvel, that
five-span bridge of hand-hewn
granite ceaselessly ferries
present-day conveyances over
the raging torrents of river,
that in spring eddies and foams
and drags down the unwary and
the unfortunate to death's cold,
wet arms in its watery depths.

Innocent in late summer, the
great stretches of limestone shelves
glaring bone-white in full light of day
the river languorously passing over
its rapids, no threat to those who fish
its abundant depths, taking little notice
of warning signs, circling gulls crying
the anguish of departed souls.

The Sun's Fingers Probing the Forest

To stride along a wooded, bowered
pathway during fall's season is to
experience a unparalleled adventure in
sensory perceptions. The crisp air of
autumn overtakes the discomfort of
warm humidity given to summer's
passing days, however treasured.

The autumn wood is redolent with
scents of our childhood, sweet and acrid.
Birdsong rings more transparent, the
atmosphere alive with winged insect life
celebrating the brief presence of their
existence as they fade toward winter.

Underfoot, we crush desiccated leaves,
the detritus of wind-fallen twigs, seed pods
and cones. Caterpillars hasten to spin their
cocoons, spiders to seek shelter in improbable
crevices. Furred creatures of the forest
diligently gather and cache winter stores.

The forest canopy, still thick with foliage,
shelters those striding below the branches
from inundating showers. Shades of red,
orange, yellow, absorb the brightness
of the sun's fingers probing the forest.

Those Sweet Red Orbs

Our garden tomato plants which
had so vivaciously flowered in
spring, bestowing upon us an
early delightful harvest of glowing
red, ripe fruit chugged along in
its unerring production, so intent
on the green turning to red, pluck-ready
for daily salads, they forgot to flower.

Those dainty yellow symbols
of future fruit simply were
non-existent and we regretted
the voluntary holiday these
hard-working green vines
decided to impose despite
more than ample rain and sun.
Contenting ourselves with the
bounty of daily sweet ripening.

Little did we realize we had
selected an especially bred cultivar
named "the tease", whose jocular
strain had been bred to stop short
of a full harvest. Now that the days
have become shorter, the nights
evolved to frost warnings our
perverse vines are ablaze with
yellow flowers; O wonder!

Our Woodland Traipses

A fussy little quadruped
he is, vexingly irritating
with his dainty, plodding gait,
resembling at times the
progress gained by a
woolly-bear caterpillar,
quietly grumbling at the
prospect of yet another
quotidian ramble in the
woods, so unfairly imposed.

He would simply so much
rather remain in indolent
comfort behind, engaged in the
delightful device of splaying
satisfactorily still in the
living heat of the sun's
probing rays. You feel like
a woodland walk, his brown
eyes tell us, depart: hail and
farewell. We shall be happily
re-united upon your return.

RANT(ing Intransigence)

As a reasonable human being
take care that the outraged umbrage
you are wont to express so passionately
and publicly, proportionately and
fairly reflects the gravity and actual
intent of the purported insults that
have wounded your self esteem;
that the incendiary heat of your
response does not overwhelm
reason and justice, else you mark
yourself as possibly psychologically
challenged to the point of imbalance,
stricken by paranoia, betraying
your deep-seated frailties by
your maliciously visceral attacks.

Distempered Presumption

It may very well be so that a weed
is but a plant whose virtues are yet
to be discovered. And it is true that
I will allow wildflowers which deign
to honour my garden with their
appearance, presence in my garden as
honoured guests, but they earn their
keep in the shy beauty of their blossoms.
It is the sheer unadulterated impertinence
of those other, utterly drab and truly
weedy, that affront me, their obtuse
stubbornness, presumption and
unwillingness to decipher the
time-honoured code of the pampered,
treasured garden; those unwanted,
unappreciated visitors whose calling
card is denied, yanked summarily
and tossed into the compost heap, need
not return. That emphatic message, so
routinely spurned by true weeds whose
pedestrian lack of blossoms and colour
inspire me to gardener's rage, express
the distemper of the ordered garden.

Supreme Majesty

Nature, at her leisure between
episodic hurricanes, earthquakes,
floods, droughts, scorching fire
and tsunamis, teases her creatures
with far lesser but unerringly impressive
displays of casual pique and distemper,
as though to accustom us to the rarer,
extraordinarily brutal events
catastrophic in their impact. This
day has been one of high winds
scuttling dark clouds across the
vault of a sun-luminous sky. We
have experienced mega-bursts of
blasting wind, sudden sullen downpours,
dark skies fading to light, then probing
fingers of sun, zealous to flaunt their
magnificent warming power, as
opposed to the lightning that so
recently streaked the sky. We give
Nature her due, no match are we for
either her light theatrical pieces or the
darkly sinister drama of her seriously
staged displays of supreme majesty.

Weightless in Death

It abided there, in miniature perfection,
gaspingly beautiful, the tiny creature.
Clearly, some gentle agent of nature
had misled the minuscule amphibian
to believe a windowsill poised above a
garden represented an ideal resting space.

When his presence was discovered, the
intention was to softly lift that perfect
little green frog into a warm and
welcoming palm, to convey it into
the nearby forested ravine where it
could be deposited to a habitat more
obviously suited to its needs, the creek
that winds its way down there.

It was, alas, not to be, for the creature
was not merely still, but inanimate,
life's force fled. How were we to know,
shuttering up night-time windows that
he was there, would be asphyxiated? His
tiny body, weightless in death had no
further care in death's imperious domain.

She Raised Herself

We raised our own and then
harnessed our elder resources
to another generation. We used to
watch in wonder as she raised herself
from a crawl to fully standing,
teetering only slightly with those
raw, tentative new steps. We bought
for her learning toys and gadgets
to delight, graduated to ipods,
smart phones and laptops. Now,
we just give her cash and she
regales us with the exciting
details of her shopping exploits.

The Dark Side

Is it when the mind lingers
as of its own mysterious
impulse, on the dark side
of the moon, conjuring up
from some unknown, mystical
source within, as though
Nature has equipped all her
creatures in the unknowable
vastness of creation, of the
infinite cosmos, of a thread
that connects each to all,
when we are reminded that
we are as motes of starry
dust forever recycled in
the never-ending cycle of
renewal, entropy, expiration,
that our emotions linger
on the darkest side of all
possible black moods?

Surely She Dreams

She dreams, surely she dreams
hazy memories. She must do so,
how else decipher those interminable
pauses of immobile intensity when
her constant pacing is arrested
and she stands, alert to some vision
passing before her unseeing eyes. At
night, asleep, she dreams, whimpers.

When this small black companion
is walked alongside us on forest trails
she is securely harnessed and a lead,
from us to her, directs her safely
along pathways she no longer recognizes
by absent sight or long-term memory.
When she wanders a gentle tug directs.

As we slowly progress on these daily
excursions she halts, turns her head
to sightlessly regard the scene behind.
What does she see? The past, thoughts
of her young days in the freshness
and delight of early discovery?

She proceeds through the tug, for she
cannot hear our long-familiar, now
puzzlingly-absent voices. Our communion
is through touch, so she knows we are there,
with her, and she responds. Then she stops,
looks reflectively behind again, seeing
there another space in time now past.

Mother Confessor

I am neither flattered nor flustered
by the arcane recognition thrown
my way of representing a sympathetic
ear to which all feel free to express
their sorrows and concerns. Why me?

Do I, without my knowledge or
consent telegraph such services; to
listen patiently and in so doing provide
a balm of ease to those in need?

My calm and unjudgemental demeanor
signals, I believe, a casually objective
world view; how have I become in
maturity such a paragon of wisdom,
a non-denominational Mother Confessor?

How is it that those perfectly unknown
to me instantaneously feel compelled to
burden me with the agony of their
unspeakably tragic tribulations?

More to the point, how is it that they
find, in the act of compelling my quiet
attention, transferring their angst to me,
needed redemption for themselves?

Clattering Dervishes

Midday of a late summer day
the vast bowl of the sky gleams
pewter, a shield of high-flung cloud
guarding the sun above. Midday,
but in the dry, green-canopied
forest it is dark and cool, a
ripple of breeze shifting leaves
languidly. Stillness prevails.

Until, cutting the tranquility
a penetrating, protracted hoot of an
owl sounds, waits, repeats itself,
waits again and continues to break
the silent wood of its lassitude. A
replying caw from a single crow in
flight, a contrapuntal challenge.

The owl's territorial presumption
soon develops into a murder of crows
hysterically mounting a frenzied
chorus. The owl's softly reverberant
hoot drowned in the raucous
plenitude of derision and anger.

Targeting its perch, there on a
bare broken limb with ample
sight lines into the forest depths,
stolidly unperturbed by the storm
unleashed upon its unblinking head;
the crows, black and windborne
clattering like whirling dervishes.

Absent Youth

Not quite a life-misadventure
but a bit of misfortune, yet
just as well that we cannot foresee
the future; that in the spring of youth
young men transfixed by the nubile
freshness and beguiling beauty of
the young woman with the
dark, soft eyes and lovely
encircling arms may become
by chance, a large and ailing
patient, bound to a wheelchair,
utterly dependent on the inadequate
physical strength of her similarly
aged, not quite so ailing husband.
For both of whom the other still
represents beauty, grace and
boundless love, absent youth.

Miscreant of Thunder and Lightning

Mightily forbidding, Thor smote
the sky. Again and yet again did he
lift his immeasurable hammer and
smite, heeding nature's imperative
command. With power and joyful
passion did the mighty warrior
rampage through the starless
firmament, crashing and smashing,
aiming bolts of fiery arrows
through the apprehensive atmosphere,
awakening the midnight creatures
below cowering in their transfixed
fear that the end of time was nigh,
Thor guffawed his mordant humour,
thrashing the heavenly elements.

The Meek And The Humble

They're back! it loudly exults, the black
feathered sentry calls, espying us
entering the ravined wood, as a
chorus of response and dark wings
assemble expectantly on nearby treetops.
Crows' clever minds and sharp eyes
alert to opportunity avidly taking note
of our peanut dispersal within craggy
nooks and crannies they have become
accustomed to triumphantly raiding.

They're back! we grumpily rumble,
loathe to replenish a daily delicacy for these
enterprising birds taking clear possessive
advantage of offerings left specifically for
chipmunks, squirrels, chickadees. Yes,
we admire their innate and nimble intelligence,
discernment in identifying us, our purpose
and the caches, but rebel at the very
notion of advantaging any but the
forest's meek and the humble.

He's A Survivor

Insensate, you say? Nasty
rodents, are they? The very
small, black squirrel with its
long, somewhat scruffy tail
confronts me. Reading in my
presence not-too-obvious signals
that something draws us to one
another. In these woods, we
are all animals of sorts.

In recognition of our similarities
in nature I come bearing gifts
as I am so often led to do,
leaving them where they will be
found and valued. This little
fellow certainly not one I
recognize with any familiarity
obviously seems to know me.

He hesitates but momentarily
in the near proximity of our
two little dogs taking no notice
of his audacity. Approaching
closer, veering off from the
forest interior, he awaits my
reaction, ventures closer yet until
I do react, sending a peanut
neatly tumbling his way.

Unhurriedly, the tiny fellow
breaches the remaining gap to
claim his prize, turning it in
his clever paws, securing it in
his maw, then proceeding at a
squirrel-leisurely pace, to depart.
No reckless behaviour, but one
born of trust and confidence.

As You Like It

We each come at things
in our own way, to suit
our own purpose. He reads
the editorial pages first,
then gradually makes his way
forward from aft, reading the
news, inconsequential parts
last. I make my orderly
way faithfully plodding
front-to-back. He, a
meat-and-potatoes man
has his meat first, the rest
follows. As for me,
I nibble that chocolate cake
and savour the icing last.