Moving Forward

Setting out in humid heat,

the sky relentlessly blue, we

dip into the ravine to 

follow the trail taking us deep

under the shading canopy on our 

quotidian mission to fully enjoy

our natural surroundings,

breathing air cleansed to a

purity shared by the birds and

small beasts whose home it is.

We are gratefully shielded

from the sizzling sun whose

broad strips of light illuminate

the clear green of the leafage,

through which it filters, as ethereal

and lovely a sight as was ever seen,

as we pass beech and birch, oak and

bass, maple and Hawthorne,

the forest hardwoods.

Overhead, the low rumble of a

plane on its trajectory, then

another, resembling thunder but

hardly credible, the visible landscape

of the sky pure and clear.  Yet, amid

long pauses there, clearly enough is

the long baritone boom of thunder.

No imminent threat, we nonchalantly

assume it bypassing and indulge in

the usual prolonged ramble.

The blue and the clear amid

dancing fingers of sunlight our

assurance the steadily increasing,

drawn-out booms represent one of

nature's bluffs.  Ah, but then overhead

distantly oncoming ragged clouds

wiping the sky clear of blue,

replaced by washrag grey. Then the

sound and the fury manifestly above,

we find purpose in moving forward

with a purposed alacrity to quite

match the storm's arrival.

 Privilege

We nonchalantly shrug, well 

accustomed to our rights

and the privileged rites of

citizenship in this vast land,

rich with opportunity and

immensely gainful natural

resources, the envy of the 

world community; peaceful,

orderly and secure, where a

multiplicity of origins

constitute the population.

And there is Faye, she of the

smiling brown face, awaiting

the status of permanence while

diligently nurturing other

peoples' children.  Her own

daughters have seen six birthdays

without their mother's presence,

the single gift they hunger for

as they grow into a maturity

that Faye has never witnessed.

 

My Comfort/His Concern

It's all right, I tell him,

don't bother.  But he

smiles at me in response,

love and patience so very

evident, exuding his 

fondness, warming me

immeasurably in the

process, as he does, indeed,

bother.  Bothering to

look to my comfort.

We were children when we first met.  Both of us were fourteen, and although I didn't know it at the time I was actually a few months older than he.  I knew, when I saw him, who he was.  In the sense that he seemed somehow familiar to me, as though I had met him before - in my subconscious perhaps, in dreams.  On the few occasions I mentioned something like that to him, many many years later, he scoffed.

We weren't thinking of having children, in the first few years of our marriage.  It wasn't until we were both twenty-two that we realized I was pregnant.  And that pleased us mightily, for we had of course, felt confident that we would have a family, eventually.  One-and-a-half years precisely fits neatly between each of our three children's births; two in October, one in April.

The April birth was different than the other two.  That was the one that the doctor didn't seem quite able to make it to, in time.  Just as well it was at Branson Hospital in Toronto where a British-born midwife-turned-nurse was on duty that night.  She handed my husband a green outfit and mask to cover his mouth, and instructed him how to assist her.  As our daughter's birth was completed, the doctor and the anaesthetist rushed into the operating room - imperiously prepared to 'take charge'.  I insisted I had no wish at that point to have the services of either.

With the first birth of our first son I wasn't the least bit nervous or concerned; reasoning, I suppose, that what I was about to undergo was the most natural and common and by extension, most primitive act on Earth.  Everything went very well, no problems whatever encountered, none anticipated. 

I recalled reading somewhere that a lactating mother should drink plenty of fluids, although it went against the grain for me. I experienced no difficulty whatever breast-feeding our children.  It was as natural as giving birth.  The babies exhibited no hesitation, no problem in doing their part of the life-giving procedure.  All went well in that department. 

Adjusting to becoming a mother was not at all difficult, just tiring.  Since my husband contributed constantly and encouraged consistently, we were both pretty fulfilled and happily immersed in our new roles.

Now, when I read about the burdensome difficulties that women experience in conceiving, in bearing children, in the agonies they experience attempting to breast feed their babies, I find it difficult to relate.  When I was young I made it a point not to listen to people who insisted on telling me about their trials and tribulations, how hard and painful childbirth was, how excruciatingly irritating breastfeeding was. 

In my naivete I reasoned that anything that common and quite simply natural, could not be that difficult.

I never regretted that decision to dismiss out of hand all the unsolicited and often alarming advice I was given.  I did it my way, and it worked perfectly well.

 Sacred Slaughter

They were born, as are we all,

with tender flesh but not

of tender hearts.  Primitive savagery

was their inheritance, and it was

deliberately installed secure

within their tribal psyches

as a grim memorial to the past;

distant but never beyond memory.

Bitter rage and biting hatred

of those not of their superior clan

was carefully instilled as they

outgrew infancy to attain the

maturity of tribal justice and

the assurance that The Prophet

(may peace and blessings be upon him) 

approved only of their brand of Islam, 

scorning all others.  That scorched 

core of their hearts became the stone 

of heartlessness enabling the

pitiless slaughter of the feeble,

pregnant women, the aged and the

tender under-aged, silt upon the Earth,

better destroyed than to degrade

Islam with their sectarian impurities,

those miserable apostates, those

scum on the glorious face of Islam.

Horror to the compassionate

onlooker, the kuffar and infidels;

a blessed duty of those enjoined

to jihad and sacred martyrdom.

 Essential Rites of Spring

Serenely possessed, the woods
are now, frenzy of early spring
concluded.  Under a cerulean sky
gentle breezes riffle the bright green
canopy.  Birds that whirled the
atmosphere with their punctual
arrival, now nesting.  The spring
flowering succession is well 
underway.  Hawthorne blooms, 
Serviceberry and honeysuckle
have faded with the entrance
of cherry and dogwood.  Gone 
the woodland and dogtooth violets,
the trilliums and foamflower,
replaced by Jack-in-the-Pulpit,
blue-eyed grass, buttercups, phlox
and columbine.  Butterflies, 
beetles, bees and dragonflies
leave their courtesy signatures
on this day's bright essence.

Skajit River

Photographs courtesy of J.S. Rosenfeld

Risky AdVenture

But, then, nothing ventured,

nothing gained as the old

adage contesting the

caution-afflicted in a

genial chide would have it.

Those who rise to the challenge

never quite see the implied

and very real dangers posing

a problem for themselves

for they are possessed of

all the athletic elements

of strength and endurance

required for success in

their venture to ascend

challenging heights and meet

weather extremes.  That

confrontation between caution

and fearful opposition is

not one they need struggle

with, their confidence in self

is supreme.  And they will

take the risk to achieve their

personal triumph.  Relieved to

have completed the impossible

made possible, they speak of

those whom fate and fortitude

failed, left to perish, their

frozen bodies ever memorialized

in their vain efforts to

summit and to survive.

The Unendurable

The grandparents, having

themselves escaped the

monumental catastrophe of

the Holocaust merely lived

lives of livid rage that their

close and remote relatives

perished in a precision-designed

disaster that successfully and

hugely diminished the presence

of Jews globally.  Haunted by

the spectre of Jew-specific

hatred and the legacy of the

hunted, they sought to spare

their children the knowledge

of being of a "race" none 

had use or compassion toward,

concerned the fearsome truth

might destroy the appetite for

life.  As parents those children

devoid of the shadow of pain

had nothing to divulge to their

own offspring.  Who now, of

necessity to know, turn to

their grandparents to unleash

upon them the dread details

meant to inform and instruct

minds sturdy enough to endure.

Social Niceties

What's that? asked the young girl
of her grandmother.  Deportment,
my dear, it is a matter of acquiring
good motor skills, standing tall,
straight and proud, coupled
with a grounding in the social graces,
called etiquette, to ensure a
young woman is aware and capable of
comporting herself competently
and with graceful assurance.
It is why families of good breeding
and social standing sent their
daughters off to special schools,
to gain those skills, much admired
and expected through exposure to
finishing schools abroad.  Polite
society demanded it from that
social class.  Without it, there
could be no grand coming-out
parties, no debutante seasonal balls,
introducing marriageable young
men and women to one another.
Oh, said she, how elaborately artificial
life must have been back in the day.

Button, after a swim in a Gatineau Hills lake

 Missing Her

Life and living is in

constant flux as we move on

from loss, somehow dealing

with the anguish and misery

of an absence in our lives,

a poignant void that

refuses to be absorbed into

regrettable experience.  We

laugh with joy and affection

at the anxious antics and

unalloyed, frantic curiosity

of a neighbour's new puppy,

while later a mourning veil

of depression brings back the

immediacy of a silence where

she once was, a sweet and gentle

reproach as guilt suffuses us

at memory of our vanished

companion.  That old age,

infirmity and loss of physical

sustainability from failed organs

was the means; the method

yet too cruel to bear.

 

The Absolute of Fewer Tomorrows

How disconcertingly peculiar

it is to confront that visage,

like someone's cruel caricature,

my likeness in a mirror,

only there is nothing to like

and surely its distortion

is very much unlike how

I appear to those viewing me.

But there it is, looking back

at me, never failing to take

me by surprise, alarming me

by the passage of time that

has so inevitably altered my

senses, but surely not my

singular appearance to so great

a degree of visual discomfiture?

Ah, there, problem solved

as correctional lenses filter

my gaze to record accuracy, and

there it is: verisimilitude.  

Yet I am no more comforted

than a child sobbing terror

of the fearful unknown awaking

from a nightmare.  Might it

be the child in me, having somehow

foreseen the abyss of age

surrendering to death...?

Having secreted it in some 

dark, hidden passage from whence

it has been suddenly resurrected

in the looming glowering

absence of tomorrow...?

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

There's a mystical, magical

secret place in my garden

where an ardent believer

returns unerringly year

upon following year

to express his faith

in the enduring certainty

of nature's irrepressible

commitment to thriving 

life.  While all is barren,

bereft of the symbols of

rebirth, expectation hangs

on the very air all breathe,

and then, suddenly he

appears, to convince us

that yet again and into

the eternity of the future

while time erodes the present,

there exists sound reason

to remain alert to the promise

for fortune's elder sister

nature, deems it so.

 Exclusive Clientele

As much as we ourselves

admire and are thankful for

a gorgeous weather day, it is

evident that the forest denizens

are similarly besotted with the day.

They greet us with heart-warming

enthusiasm, large black crow

hot on our trail, securing for

himself one of the cached peanuts, 

crushing it open, eating the

prizes, making way for a red

squirrel, indignant that he has

pre-empted her entitlement.

We are confronted soon by

tail-swivelling black squirrels

aware of what we carry to

dispense, challenging us to remit

them directly, and we oblige.  They

take possession, to rotate the

peanuts in their grasping little paws,

trustingly turn their back to us,

happy with the transaction and

busy themselves with the

consuming business that ensues.

Camera, Action!

Because, famously, chance

favours the prepared, I agreed

with myself that this was as

good a day as any; breezy, mild,

sky cloud-bedecked with an

occasional glare of a disgruntled

sun, to take along my little digital 

eye.  Almost resigned to the

misfortune of missing that elusive

blue-eyed grass, I hoped for other

exciting flora or fauna to oblige.

But those great birds of the

woodland forest seem to delight

in foiling me.  I know this to be so,

as one haunts me with a taunting

"Hoo" do I think I am, and the 

other, flighting brilliantly beyond

my camera maniacally chortles

in high-pitched delight at his

clever feints and passages.

High above, fleetingly entering

my vision the Pileated settles

all too briefly on what's left of a

moribund, well-cratered poplar trunk

his red-crested head aglow, then

exits as I focus a split nano-second

too late.  As I worked in my garden

the Great Grey's call reverberated

from the woods giving me hope.

Today might be the day, who 

knows, that I might capture its

image to wonder at and treasure.

Even a peek below the leafage of

a ginger plant to espie and picture

its retiring little flower, would do.

Instead, camera at the ready,

there was Mr. Grey's tease, a

long plume of a brown-striped

feather, mocking my feeble intent.

 

The Gardening Bug

What's the big hurry, you

ask, why the panic, since

there's always tomorrow,

lots of them, no need to

busy yourself at breakneck

speed to get it all done

in one fell swoop.  Ah, yes,

true enough, but only

someone not infused with a

gardener's passion would

utter these comments.  For,

you see, reasonableness has

nothing whatever to do with

the irresistibility of gardening.

No panic, you see, none 

at all. But the exhilaration of

finally nature and climate 

willing to indulge, oh yes, 

indulge in the joy of flirting 

with the process whereby 

nature herself, and only herself, 

creates spontaneously,

effortlessly, wonderfully.

Gardeners are mere pretenders,

dilettantes,  hopeful aspirants,

but what fun, what challenges,

what exquisite rewards!

Funny, You Think!

That's one wicked sense of

humour; friend texting

"Where are you?!", while

she frantically searches the

school perimeter for the bus

usually parked there, now absent.

That message should have

alerted her to said friend's

involvement in skulduggery

geared to goad her to panic.

A friend previously confided 

in, aware of how traumatic and

isolating she felt about being left

behind, a remnant of a dim memory

of years before when she was

indeed lost as a toddler.  As she

searched the bus interiors for clues

heads slumped out of view.  The

identifying number the driver 

wrote on a taped paper, removed

thoughtfully by this friend.

Grandmother listened and was

deeply empathetic to the

daughter of her daughter, for

some arcane reason inheriting

a neurosis she thought was all

her own, and she recounted the

ways, even now, how nightmares 

haunt her sleeping hours, as she

roams unfamiliar streets, in

vain seeking the comfort

of familiarity and home.

Matriarch Supreme

A gift from Mother Nature,

this exceedingly fine

mid-May day, freely offered

to all who value the

spirit of life and choose

this day for a pleasant ramble

in the re-awakened woods.

There, in full living colour

is Trillium grandiflorum, a

tri-cornered white beauty of the

springtime forest.  Its shy,

painted cousin and brash

crimson counterpart, there too.

Admire their beauty but not

to overlook Anemone canadensis

with its ivory-buttercup blooms. 

Look! delicate little strawberry 

flowers stippling  the forest floor.  

!Wild! Lily-of-the-valley's starry

wee florets, and there lovely plumes

of Tiarella cordifolia, Linnaeus.

Caution! innocent of looks and

sincerely attractive puffed

floral heads of Actae rubra 

(Red Baneberry) Be-ware! 

Everywhere capturing our gaze,

viola canadensis, sweet violets,

soft white and purple-mauve.

And look, over there, wild

columbine some call mouse-ears.

Bellwort too, and Marsh marigold -

cowslip to you.  Dandelion makes

its statement firm of presence,

Coltsfoot more the retiring type.

Look up, in the trees, yes,

Serviceberry and Hawthorne

flowers twirling in the breeze.

Best for last, the Petit precheur,

Jack-in-the-pulpit, bashfully 

hiding its purple-striped glory.

The Myopic Innocence of Misanthropy

Like an adder, she rears back,

then strikes, drawing blood with

every pitiless, pointed barb.  

With viperous accuracy she

instinctively seeks the gaps

in her victims' psychic armour,

leaving them reeling in injured

disbelief at the venom curdling

into their very marrow.  The

sheer malevolence of the attack

has them gasping, unable to

respond, other than to withdraw

to nurse their injuries in the

privacy of puzzled pain.  And

she later rails at the unjustness

of existence, a life that has left

her with little of emotional

value, friendless, wondering

why it seems that people

unaccountably conspire among

themselves to somehow avoid her.

Expressions of Love

I need no reminder
that I am the mother
of your children, nor
my memory nudged of
all the years that 
have passed since
that long-ago time
when we, scarce out
of our own childhoods
knew that our lives
would be spent in this
tandem of companionship
where you smile me into
happiness and transport
me to comfort, by my
side, indefatigable
in your many, varied
expressions of love.

Memories

Those of recent vintage

abrade our emotions

carrying us to a dark

deep place of longing

and despair.  We lurch

from sorrow to a celebration 

of her life with us in the 

mellowed memories of our 

adventures our joys in life, 

she beside us, delving 

as deeply as did we

in all those experiences

long past and therein

lies our sole comfort.

Abandoned

It is a street like all others

that structure the urban

landscape; orderly, solidly

middle-class, pride in 

ownership evident in those

neat facades nicely painted,

gardens and lawns spruced

for spring, and the bypassing

eye sees nothing remarkable

until it is arrested by the

bleak sight of one home in the

complacent neighbourly

row of houses whose 

windows are boarded and

where telltale black singes

have marred the even colour

of brick and siding.  The

house, looking bleak,

forlorn, even puzzled

at its sheer misfortune 

as though grieving for the

yesterday when all was normal 

in its pride of presence,

children's voices echoing 

in the halls, responding

to a mother's call to assemble

for the family meal.

Friends

Each time I espie him

my heart leaps and warms.

I so admire his bold spunkiness

and intelligence, his curiosity

and carefully surmised 

conclusion that he would 

have much to gain by offering

me his friendship.  I reciprocate

in the only way that a tailless 

squirrel might appreciate,

greeting him familiarly by

name and never without an

edible gift.  The sound of his

name expressed by my voice

can draw him from within

quite a territorial radius.  He

is patient, awaiting the largest

peanut in my sack, leaping

confidently off with it,

resembling nothing so much

as a small black rabbit.

Tofino

Backpack nestled in old-growth cedar

Photos courtesyof J.S. Rosenfeld

Hello Garden

Hello garden, my old friend,

nice of you to visit, yet

again.  It is true that an

ounce of bright renewal

can banish a half-year's-worth

of pining regret for what

once gave insouciant impetus

to the wondrous glory of life.

So glad to see you've survived

another winter's excess of 

unforgiving rancour; the miserable

blasts of that season have left

us reeling in dismayed disbelief,

relieved now by the benevolence

of spring's balming essence.

We bask in warmth, gentle rain

and unblinking sun beaming

permission to tender shoots

emerging from rich, damp soil.

So, hello you tulips and daffodils.

Welcome back, clematis, hydrangea

honeysuckle.  So good to see you,

bergenia, glorious Magnolia!

Without Doubt

Without doubt, things are

changing.  This is a lovely day.

Gone the incessant rain events,

the unseasonable spring flirtation 

with that winter reluctant to depart.

Finally, the sun is out to dry

drenched landscapes where

forsythia, tulips, daffodils and

dandelions anxiously vie for

attention and acclaim as the

first of the season, earning

our grateful adulation.

And you seat yourself 

awkwardly in the waiting room

crowded with people, wondering

exactly what you're doing there,

amongst those who are grossly

overweight and pitifully underweight,

bent crooked, stumbling, unwilling

to meet the eye of a stranger.  You

wonder why it was you dressed to

ward off cool, damp weather

and now feel constricted, hot.

Names are called and those

waiting respond, tottering to

the inner offices, their faces 

peaked, lined, pale, concerned.

You return to your book, the one

you read only in such places, a

tedious novel to match a tedious

process.  And that is why you are

there, the process today includes

electrodes and a weekend-worn

heart monitor.  Your doctor

exhibits rather peculiar whimsies.

 Disinterested in Gloom

Nature is indulging herself again

tossing out one of her famous

seasonal tantrums; weeping sky

utterly haggard, grey countenance,

hoarse whispers of angry denial in 

wind whirling through treetops and 

no relief in sight from those deep

doldrums of miserable disaffection;

it is by any account a gloomy day.

We are not invested in glumness

nor is the cardinal, tuning out the

cloud-bruised lid above, ringing

the woods with its trill.  An owl's

steady querying response is more 

playful than mournful.  An ovenbird 

calls, inviting the lunatic glee of a 

Pileated, besotted with spring.  And 

a nuthatch creeps downside up, 

quite disinterested in gloom.

Button

Easing The Pain

We hardly know her,

a pleasant young woman

just recently taken to

walking her two small

Scotch terriers in the

woods, a place we

frequent daily.  She has

noted the absence of one

of our little dogs, and

tells us she believes in

the healing process of

discussing the death of a 

beloved pet to ease the pain.

One of us explains quietly

how devastating it has been

for us to lose the presence

of our decades-long companion.

He does not speak of the gloom

and longing that has settled

over us, or the long, fond

shared memories.  He does,

however, add that we have 

found it painful, not easeful,

to speak of our loss.  He says

all this while the other weeps.