All Saints

As though the world does not have
enough ogres, ugly giants and
evil-tempered troglodytes, they're
boasting a veritable home-coming
convention of eerie companions
this dark, windy, cloudy night. We
quail and quiver in our lairs in
fearful anticipation of the night.

Oh, nothing truly sinister like
black cats zooming through the sky
and tyrants, dictators and other
assorted thugs that habitually
oppress, threaten and traumatize
the helpless. No, it's the budding
aspirants who find the fearsomely
forbidding somehow appealing
as stylistic mentors-at-large.

So, out they crawl, creep and
stealthily advance, horns in place,
fangs in full view and hideous
laughter haunting the atmosphere.
The devils and the ghouls, the
goblins and the ghosts, the
witches and warlocks converge.

Wait, what's this? An opposing
flock of our better angels drifting
toward the dark mass, their
brilliant presence sparking a
revolution of shooting stars with the
antique music of the spheres above
drowning the ghastly menace forced
to withdraw as the saintly prevail!

Householders may now breathe a
sigh of abated comfort. Extinguish
those exterior lights ablaze to welcome
the darkly-led miseries engulfed by the
presence of fairies and princes. All the
priceless treasures have been claimed.
We may now close firmly shut our doors;
no more tricks, gone the treats.

None (All) Of The Above

What greater gift could a
grandmother receive than
the assurances that her
grandchild is fully capable
and engaged in the pursuit
of moral certainty. Embellishing
her teen-age statements with
realized verities, like 'civility'
and 'responsibility', 'compassion'
and 'enduring friendships'.
Surely the foreseeable future
and Dame Fortune have much
good in store for such an adept
pupil schooling herself in the
vitalities and utilitarian values
of decency and justice ... ?

The Purpose of Life

Most eat to live, he lives to eat.
Little Greedy Guts is at it again,
with his meek demeanour suddenly
turned impudent, he slinks into the
kitchen cupboard just at his dwarfish
height where the compost pail is
kept in its kitchen dungeon. Small he
may be, but most certainly also a glutton.
No manners whatever, forever cadging
and cajoling for seconds and thirds.
Nothing left unguarded is safe from his
greedy capture. Left to his own devices,
if he could somehow provide for himself
he might be in danger of assuming
overblown proportions, unseemly and
forever teetering on the razor's edge of
corporal detonation. That sprite of an
appetite-ferocious mite is the living
embodiment of over-consumption.

The Woebegone Gardener

They are yet spectacularly glorious,
those indefatigable garden beauties,
the stalwarts of our garden beds, pots
and urns, blazing with their zest for life
undiminished, in all their gorgeous
colours, shades, delicate forms and
amazing variations - spring to fall.

They blaze with the confidence that
only garden favourites can presume
to assume. Reaching for a paler sun,
accepting cooler nights and torrents
of rain, nothing diminishes their
spirited showiness and lovely array.

And then, there am I, with spade and
snips, shocking them out of their
splendid placidity. Excavating the
gardens, the urns, leaving soil and
the ruination of beauty behind. For,
known to the gardener is the race
against the garden's nemesis, frost.

Hurriedly, tenderly, each glowing
plant lifted, sturdy stalks and heart
wrenchingly lovely flowers composted,
leaving small lumps of soil-covered
bulbs to lay away in a dry sheltered
haven, a precious cache of sleeping
glory in abundant abeyance.

All to be resurrected in good time
when the frozen wasteland of lovely
white crystals that signify winter and
that long period of imposed bleakness
has departed, when the bulbs can be
coaxed by spring's new sun, gentle
showers and aspiring vibrant life
to reappear and affirm re-birth.

They Know Us

There they are in their plentiful
numbers, maniacally ripping through
the fall landscape in a frenzy of
survival. Their instinct to gather
and store, nibble and prepare for
winter now in full gear, they compete
and scold; small furred creatures
of the forest. They know us.

They are aware that when we enter
their precinct we leave behind, in
long-held designated places, items
they hold in high regard. The greys
are the brightest, waiting for us to
single them out and send a peanut
directly their way for instant play
in the game of search-and-retrieval.

The tiny reds, the most fiercely
combative, they harry, scold, worry
and ceaselessly chase the much larger
greys and the hapless blacks. As well
as those of their own tribe. They are
electric-swift, swallowing ground
under their amazingly talented feet.

The blacks are sleekly furred, given
to audacious teasing; lacking however,
the fearless energy of the reds and the
existential intelligence of the greys.
The blacks display timidity and their
very special brand of bland stupidity.
Generalizing, I know. Not meaning to
criticize, merely remarking, you see.

Fall Arras

It was a tortoise-shell hardness of a sky,
belligerent with smudges of fast-moving
pockets of darkly threatening vapour.
Gusty blasts of some giant's ill-tempered
breath gave morose promise of weather
yet to come. But by some trick of welcome
providence that same wind dispersed the
chaotic clouds, finally leaving that great
dome clear and blue, introducing a blaze
of sun to the unmistakable fall equation.

Shafts of sunlight glimmered off stark
white wood splinters mounded beside
ash and poplar where the immature trunks
had been precisely incised, notched to be
stored within beaver lodges. A small,
muscular black, green and gold snake lay
still among a riot of leaves, worshipping
the sun. A hairy woodpecker intently
thrummed its homage to the season.

Quest For Fire

When hope ebbs, fades and
ceases, so too do the final vestiges
of civilization. Hope's absence
invites suspicion, hatred, cruelty,
violence, chaos, and what results
invariably is intractable human
degradation, the loss of compassion
the diminishing of humanity's spark.

In so many words, a sad summation
of humanity's fallibility. This is
a high school English assignment.
Class: Read this classic novel, its
author had much to say, and he
said it exceedingly well. Find his
formula, parse it, and explicate.

Read the novel, and yourselves
judge the metaphor that it presents
of human descent into inhumanity.
Present an argument in defence of
your impressions, your perceptions,
your findings, your theory and
your indelible convictions thereof.

Should you have questions on
process, feel free to discuss with me.
....How convey that the premise of the
book curdled her very marrow? That
she admired, wept over Piggy. Had
her heart shattered into jagged
little pieces? Not for discussion.

Alone

Your decree in all matters obdurately
final. You brooked no discussion,
no dissent, while claiming the route
of communication open, in all areas -
as long as no one questioned your
faultless judgement and unassailably
emotional logic. When you were born
you squalled your defiance of life.

How could you have known it would
confound and then complicate, finally
reject your every move? Life does seem
to do that to those who snub its
trajectory, intent on forging their own
destiny while taking no prisoners,
burning all bridges fecklessly behind
them on that long, frustrating journey.

Stumpy and Stumpette

Two very small back runts.
Nowhere near as plush as their
intact counterparts sporting their
long, luxurious tails. These two
tail-deprived ones have managed to
gain their special talents prodded by
necessity, the will to survive
despite lack of advantage.

They create their adeptness,
physical dexterity and balance
without benefit of a tail. But, male
and female, they do differ. Stumpy
preferring to consume all the
peanuts which, one by one, he
cadges from us, through typically
bold entitled confrontations.

While Stumpette, eager but cautious,
hesitant yet trusting (neither
consulting with one another, for
each lives separate lives on opposite
ends of the forest divide) takes each
proffered peanut, to prudently bury
within her forest-floor pantry
to be retrieved when need is dire.

A Symbol of Another Time

One must, of necessity be circumspect
in polite society. Taking care not to offend,
for example, by making much of an
exotic spectacle. It would not do at all
to glance lingeringly and notice with some
depth of observation those garbed in a
manner reflective of a far-off, foreign
culture so removed from our own that
men wear a sort of dress and cap it seems,
and women of that culture simply are not there,
so eclipsed are they by the voluminous
fabric cage in which they are enveloped,
eyes only to be seen through narrow slits
permitting forbidden sight lines.

Surely this represents a vision tunnelled
concisely toward a heavenly gaze so the
pious may not be led sadly astray by
commingling with those of another culture
whose freedoms represent monstrously
blasphemous insults toward a sacred injunction.
So we may not and should not judge, nor
feel rejected when a tentative overture is
sullenly ignored by those deliberately
oblivious to the presumed female
penchant for verbalizing contact.

Yet those small girls, frantically alive
with the zest of games and companionship,
head carefully covered and hair tucked within,
seem as joyful and carefree as any child,
anywhere. What happens to them on the way
to adulthood to succumb to traditions of bitter
silence, avoidance of human relations, sour
withdrawal inside self hidden by prison-like
garments from the beckoning world without?

The little boy, however, steering
the shopping cart for his uber-clad
mother, softly excuses himself and shyly
smiles, his brown eyes sweet, as he
crowds the groceries aisle and passes
before me. Him, my own eyes gratefully
embrace, a symbol of another time
another place and hope for the future.

A Semitic Lost Tribe

Tutoring children in the uber-national
glories of heroism has been a standard
feature of many societies. None have
perfected that passion to the degree of
emotional dedication to the standards
the Palestinians have managed. None
too young to be inducted into the halls
of vicious hatred. Inspire fear and
dread and hatred born of self-preservation
rears its serpent's hissing head. From the
cradle to the grave, infancy to agedness,
the sublime spark of tolerant humanity
is drained, replaced by implacable
loathing and a will to the pride of
celebrated martyrdom. This, indeed,
represents the fate of an unfortunately
lost tribe. In the ecstatic blessing they
perceive in hastening the deaths of
others, through terror-induced atrocities
they find their sublime salvation.

Time of the North Wind

That's me, over there, wearing
gardening gloves, you see. Shears
in one hand, secateurs the other
and balancing a small spade, working
against time and weather to spiff up
the garden. I'm not heartless, just
practical, spurning frost-mushed
annuals disposed of when icy-cold
and miserable winds set in for the
duration, preferring to deal with them
still fresh in their blooming colour
and exquisite form, though it pains
to reduce them to bulbs that will
over-winter in a sheltered place.

The gardener's attention turns to
cutting back the stubborn bloomers
in late fall, the leafy mounds and the
bright-berried shrubs, to leave all in
good order for the interim slumber
under the northern snow blanket. It
is a time of gentle sorrow, of mourning
passing seasons of growth, of promise,
beauty and bounty. Grim preparation
of the garden's rest one of those tasks
whose time has come with the north wind,
the sun's discretely-wan presence,
Earth tilting its axis, reminds us of the
pain and pleasure we all meet in life.

The Complexity of the Iatrogenic Effect

Your doctor, said her temporary
replacement, is back from maternity
leave, but is unable to see you today.
So how may I help you? he asked.

He's grey, rotund and though obviously
good natured, looks drawn and somewhat
harried. I'm well, only here for prescriptions
renewals. And, he prompted, you have
had your annual physical check-up?

Last one, I responded, was fifteen years
ago; watching as a bemused look of horror
crosses his face. No!?! Yes. I am healthy,
no need for check-ups. So he launched into
a soft little scolding session about nipping ill
health in the bud to produce good health.

I do that, I respond serenely, by eating well,
exercising my body well, resting as required,
keeping my mind involved. A tad too smugly,
I am warned by his look of consternation.

So, why all the medications renewals? Ah,
complications arising from an original,
cautionarily-prescribed medication,
resulting from a routine medical check.

Just Saying...

Is it not paradoxical, odd, at the very least
- come on, admit it - in all seriousness,
that hatch-and-dispatch notices are
co-located in the daily newspaper?
Some wag obviously pioneered that
tradition to represent a standby, someone
with an arch sense of humour, no doubt. The
juxtaposition says it all - life's trajectory;
inevitable, unavoidable - do your best,
this offer is no experiment. Furthermore,
placed in the Lifestyles Section of the paper?

Wait, there's more. Haven't you noticed?
Another wag has placed an advert for
Travel Insurance on the Memorials/
Remembrance page. Who knew one
requires that too, to speed us on our
way, Gadzooks! And here we had the
impression that the heavenly escalator
went either up or down - it's St. Peter's
call, after all, isn't it? Is the travel insurance
a kind of discreet bribe proffered up there?

Tough Times

So - you work hard -
don't we all? You believe
your hard work deserves
special recognition - don't
we all? Your union has
contracted well above the
inflation rate. We don't all
have unions. Fact: we don't
all have employment.

Tough, you say? Yessir,
it sure is - it's tough
and you know what?
It's getting tougher.
Comes a time, Mack, I'll
see you too, on the bread
line. Your assembly line
is heading East, Chum.

Sprite of a Mite

He is an enormous pest. Insistent,
stubborn, entitled and occasionally
bad-tempered, he drives me to
distraction. Why, then, do I concede
he may continue in his chosen path?
He embarrasses me with his
ceaseless hostility to others - dogs,
that is. The bigger they are, the
meaner they look, invariably they
stand back, astonished to be
aggravatingly challenged by a
mite who considers himself mighty.
Thing is, I've grown awfully fond of
him, despite his irritatingly maddening
predilections. He is, in the final analysis,
a mighty loving and obdurate, but
appealing sprite of a mite.

Rue The Day

The evidence is there, let there be
no mistaking, for this day dawned a
glowering truculence. Clearly, a
malevolent spirit was given a free hand,
entrusted with the measure of the day,
finding it wanting. The face of the sky
and the nascent day began in good enough
humour. The sun's glowing orb in full
residence, that face smiled gently, warm
upon the Earth. The cloistered trees
moved by a gentle breeze sent their
dry leaves to whispering the good news.
Which obviously offended that malign
spirit who with clenched fist unloosed
dark brooding clouds to screen the sun,
then whipped the breeze to a frenzied
whirlwind, auguring ill for the innocent
day to become foul-mooded instead. The
trees sulked and dropped their foliage, the
clouds argued ferociously among their
sullen peers, clashing, thundering
angrily, pelting the land below with
a fusillade, then a torrent of furious tears.
Ill humour, alas, ruled the day. An
decidedly will wind bore the message.

Patterning

The son sees his father immaculately
suited, week-day mornings precisely
accoutered, tie perfectly knotted, shoes
agleam, as he sets out for his bureaucrat's
uptown office day by day. He witnesses
the daily after-work discard, the opting
of leisure garb, acutely reflecting his own
carelessly casual school wardrobe.

The father has long since surrendered
the wardrobe of office industry to the
practical selection of rude workman's
dress as in retirement he is employed
with home carpentry, painting, glazing,
shed-building and all manner of tasks
revolving around entropic inevitability
and materials fatigue to match his own.

The son, now emulating the father's
quotidian work schedule, eschews a car
for a bicycle, the impeccable suited
office attire for well-worn jeans at his
university-venued office, tending also
to similar householder tasks of seasonal
need. Both engaged in intellectual pursuits
and love of hand tools, clinging to the
comfort of faded, worn integuments.

Beginner's Chemistry

Heed this formula, tried and true.
Beckon shorter daylight hours;
match that with a cooling trend
(tired of hot, humid, sunny days,
are you not?). Sprinkle here and
there generous rain events. And
summon up a bit of errant wind.
Well done, relax and enjoy the change.

Warning: this is no mere experiment.
What it represents is a cyclical, natural
event. And what results is, in a manner
of speaking, miraculous. Blazing colours
held aloft by previously chlorophyll-green
leaf-laden trees; during night-time hours,
hush: listen to the songbirds tweeting
across the continent. Daytime, observe
as furred forest creatures forage.

Enjoy the fragrance of ripening fruits,
ready for the table, brilliant, misshapen
gourds to decorate your door. Stop -
right - there. And go no further. Reverse
thrust and lengthen those daylight hours,
recall the warm, sunny days, bring back
those balmy breezes. What, your
chemistry set has suddenly imploded?!

Picture This Exhibition

Have a caution of prior informed
restraint, exercise a care of what
you may release, unless that is,
you burn with compassion, or are
a deliberate masochist. Utter that
innocent-enough-seeming phrase
and stand back as the subliminal
urge to privacy succumbs to the
urgency to release life's ills to an
unwary and yet welcome ear.

The chance meeting of two old
friends on a refined and genteel
occasion expressed by sublime music
of Pictures at an Exhibition has
entered musical posterity as a
humble masterpiece of overstatement;
unleashed humour, drama, intrigue
and beauty of a masterful score.

Not to be confused with the choice
encounter of two elderly neighbours,
one hale and considerate, the other
frail and resentful, unleashing a
barrage of peeved utterances. A family
reunion gone horribly awry, with the
poignant, sharp-edged details
carefully sketched in indignation.

Another distant relative dead in
garishly unfortunate circumstances;
the ensuing family disputes on the
estate's dispersal satisfying no one.
More excruciating details relevant
to health and lack of it, with the
critical onset of a dread disease,
the following surgery, recovery,
horrifyingly unexpected relapse.

You asked. Did you not? You must,
therefore, out of a moral obligation
receive the endless flood whose gates
you so very fecklessly opened. Social
convention would have it no other
way. Cluck your distressed concern -
for the teller-of-tales - not your burning
ears. After all, there is a simple
solution: Don't ask or suffer response.

Thanks for Giving

All right, then, it's you and me
then, isn't it? I went ahead and
baked your favourite pumpkin pie;
you replaced the rotted window sills.
Yesterday I made the cranberry
sauce, just the way you like it. And
you, of course, finished replacing the
exterior window frames. This
afternoon the half-turkey, frozen
since its mirror-half fed us at
Christmas was defrosted, seasoned
and popped into the oven. You
sanded down the new window frames
and the flaked paint on the old frames.
I made certain the potatoes would
roast in the turkey juices, just as
you asked for. You, of course, cleaned
the window glass then applied the base
coat paint. The fresh vegetable
salad is done, the table is set.
Are you coming in for dinner?

...What?

When I was going through the
initial stages of menopause,
I used to wonder, with great
confusion, that those around me
failed to react at the sudden onset
of truly unbearable heat - I seemed
to be the only one looking for
its inexplicably-afflicting source.

Now, years later, I find myself
puzzled by the growing awareness
and no little irritation, that people
around me have taken to a kind of
mumbling discourse, muffling their
voices, dulling their words, really
speaking to themselves, not me. How
am I then expected to respond?

Courage, Sisters!

From left: Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are shown in these file photos. (AP Photo)

From the fount of Western civilization
to the Dark Continent; ancient Greek women
to present-day African women; oppressed,
degraded, devoid of human rights, a
surging sense of empowerment arose:
from the battlefields of women's bodies
denial of access as a signal that all will
not continue as it has in a world dominated
by male power, exclusively patriarchal,
denying the very alien concept of gender
equality and liberation of the female spirit.

Courage, sisters! African leading lights
in the women's movement to deny men's
institutionalized prerogatives; casual rape
of women and children. Together, we will
present an allied front, an impenetrable wall
of resistance. And we will insist our counsel
be sought in the violent pursuit of ancient
tribal enmities, victimizing the helpless for
the glory of the powerful, uncaring of our
hapless, no-longer-helpless plight.

Women's fury, finally roused and awakened
from its ghastly corpselike apathy, crucified
in violence, scorn, poverty, starvation, disease
and ignorance has combusted into a fiery
demand and righteous entitlement. Notice
given, the wheel of progress and enlightenment
initiated grinds inexorably forward. And three
African women saluted as Nobel laureates.

The Jill Of All Arts

She has become magnificently
adept. She is, you see, the supremely
polished, accomplished confidante of
many muses. When she assigns
herself a task, perfection results. She
moves quietly in sunlight city streets,
and solemnly through nighttime forests.
Her talents? Manifold and superbly
unsurpassable. She is the Jill of
all arts, unlike Jack mistress of all.
She speaks in tongues unfamiliar,
conferring and communing with
the animals who approach her
confidently for haven and for love.
Her peers regard her grace and
beauty through slit-green eyes of
envy. Friends she has none. Men
lust after her unapproachable
chastity, wish her the ill of their
frustrations. This odd creature, is
she your daughter, or a feverish
figment of my wayward imagination?

The Franchise Message

A month-long pandemonium of
hopeful aspirants to parliamentary
office recklessly promising gifts of
choice value to the electorate paid by
the taxes extracted from that very
constituency listening with bored,
half-cocked ear is finally culminating
in the denouement of rejection
and heartily reluctant ballots.

A bird in the hand, old wisdom would
have it, is worth two in the bush. What
if that bird won't fly, can't sing, refuses
to lay eggs and proliferate? Does it
make sense to encourage its uselessness?
Promises flow from politician's crafty
mouths like melodies from a robin,
heralding rain. Our signal to pull on
rain jackets as protection from the
downpour of dissatisfaction certain
to follow as sun does the rain.

The sun of promised relief albeit
temporary, from the useless, misguided
travesty of poor choices by elected
government enabling weary voters to
bring in alternate aspirants represents
the anchor of democratic action. Behind
that day pompous, misbegotten public
relations reign; telephone lobbying,
door-knocking, slurs and veiled slanders.

Damning political adversaries
when all else fails tediously irritates
the public, but has become as predictable
as never-ending, prognosticating poll
results, diagnosing the forewarnings.
Enter the voting chamber, with its
election officials eager to serve the
process. Survey a scene of calm
before the storm of final results in a
strange place where you are the sole
voter present to exercise your franchise.

Nimbly Pacing Uphill

There were we, of a perfect
blue-sky autumn day, out in
the woods fragrant with the
changing season, breeze ruffling
dry leaves, the orb of the sun
sending brilliant fingers of light
through the thinning canopy,
marvelling at the changeable
moodiness of Nature.

There were we, in our grey
haired dotage, struggling uphill
on challenged legs. Beside us,
no swifter for their four legs,
our elderly little dogs as attuned
to the colourful rapture of the
day, certainly as we. An oriole
sang sweetly from a nearby
copse, and dragonflies lifted
over still-fresh purple asters.

For all matters in nature there
is a season and a reason. A
maxim abundantly clear, as a
trio of lovely, lithe young women
abloom with health, in the morning
of their lives, dressed as lightly
as we were tightly against cool
temperatures, passed us by.

There were they, smiling beatifically,
their long bare legs in perfect unison
as they glided in an ecstasy of
freedom and their youthful display
of dew-damp freshness. They greeted
our eyes as though we had ventured
upon woodland nymphs nimbly
pacing uphill; we on our way down.

The Awareness Of Being

Her primary faculties have
inexorably, over the passing
years, drained and diminished.
Her sight and her hearing have
fled with the years, her memory
defaulted, her brain's reasoning
dissolved into steep chaos and
obviously distressed confusion.

What remains is of comfort to her,
and to us. Residual recognition of
her favoured resting places remain
a vestigial reminder to her, those
places hers, and hers alone. She
still succumbs to the temptations
of treats to enhance her reluctance
to eat, but once engaged proceeds
to satiation. Yet not an ounce is
gained on her spare, bony frame.

She forgets to lap at water and to
ensure hydration must be led to it;
like a horse she can be led, but only
she decides when to drink. She must
be guided by leash and harness on
woodland trails for confusion readily
advances without that assurance.
And when she halts and gazes
sightlessly she must be lifted and
carried under the forest canopy.

Her memory of the interior
parameters of her home of almost
two decades no longer intact, she
will lurch from one impediment or
barrier to another, incapable of
heeding. When cold arrives she
must have cover to shelter her
newly temperature-sensitive body.

Asleep in her place at night we
hear her dream and whimper. We
recall her as a shy, standoffish young
pup given to occasional raving
enthusiasms and we wonder now
what she in her final time recalls
to give her sleeping distress;
perhaps premonition of the long
sleep from which no awareness
of being is capable of awakening.

The Penetrating Rain

The day's steady, penetrating
rain has cast its gloom on
the landscape. The sky, like a
vast perforated strainer, pewter
and transparently sodden, has
turned its unrelenting faucet
to the fully discharging setting.

Misery sits drenched and apathetic
within the cool, shuddering dens
and nests of Nature's creatures
unwilling to venture into the
fur-and-feather-damping scene.
Watery forest runways are
mud-brown and rank in swamp gas.

Willow leaves, speared and green,
have formed a spiral island
on the swollen, turgid stream.
The forest soil can absorb no
more, the hills are slick with
tumbled leaves, luminous-wet.

Pine needles, orange-bright,
carpet the forest floor, punctuated
by cones, sticky with sap adhering
to soft paw pads, picking up dried
seed pods, furthering Nature's
faultless distribution system.

Caution: Take Careful Note

GothAnimeGirl.jpg image by blackfay_witch"

Please be advised, this is an
alert issued for the public good
and as an advisory to those in
the adult world seeking the
advantage of pre-warning
on a timidly personal level.

Do take care when pursuing
conversations with the young,
emerging into mature adulthood,
insecure on the perilous shoals
of self-doubt, mired in the teen
pathology of painful self-awareness.

Be informed that innocent
observations on your part may
be intolerably offensive, that what
you may take to be sage advice
to be imparted, is really controlling,
gross interference; that any and all
assurances of support you may
muster are worthless irrelevancies.

That, in fact, you may no longer
exist but as an annoying delirium of
the past. Restrain your impulse to be
helpful, it is an inflammatorily
inappropriate misguidance. As with
the responsible stewardship of some
exotic plant, water frequently, feed
as directed, expose to light, then
retire gracefully from the scene.

The Forest Floor

The vast bowl of the autumn sky,
glimpsed through the patterns
of wind-ruffled leaves attaining
cheerful shades of primary colours
as their familiar chlorophyl-green
recedes, glows silver-grey, dappled
with dark grey clouds that loosed
upon last night's sleeping landscape
a veritable flood. An eerie light
filters through the forest, strange
and beautiful, illuminating the
colours in a transparent hue. Crickets
bow their high-pitched fall screed as a
breeze ruffles the forest canopy, and
dried leaves tumble like snow, assembling
a crackling-thick compost of discarded
matter to enrich the fecund forest floor.