Creation's Eve(ning) 

Gender differentials have a habit
of presenting themselves universally, 
on a minuscule scale as much as a
gigantic presence. And speaking
universally, as of the living Universe
in all its immense power and diversity,
the general consensus is that God,
the supreme commander of all he
surveyed -- a blank -- performed admirably
demanding the most minute atom
to the greatest cluster of giant Galaxies
to spring into being, so that where
there was nothing, in an instant there
was well, everything. However, as his
twin always wryly observed, the
devil is in the details. And of course
this is where the detail creator enters.
This is where Nature contrived the
creative equation, she the mistress of
design and experiment, bestowing
creation with awful symmetry, beauty,
differentiation and stern order. God,
in his manly way, uttered the command
and she, his nobly talented helpmeet
created, designed, imagined and nurtured
into reality the endless panoply of
matter and life - as we know (it).

Amazing Grace

It's Schnauzers or nothing and
nothing is no option for he loves
those sturdy little dogs in miniature.
Years ago, as a serviceman he was
sturdy too, and he met his first one
in Stuttgart. That one had kidney failure,
the second one diabetes. This, his third,
is now eleven, a companion of long
standing, mute and trusting who only
just recently was diagnosed with diabetes
and doesn't even notice the blood-sugar
tests and insulin injections. But he
was incensed after a two-day stay
at the emergency veterinarian clinic
downtown when they sped there one 
night for a 20-minute surgery that
cost $3500 but spared his life and 
removed the stone. He resented the
absence of his human mentor. Who,
just coincidentally, now has chronic
shakes, no longer robust, shrunken
into himself, absent-minded and gloomy.

Spring Thaw

A bare gossipy whisper
between winter and spring
sees the forest floor surrender
its deep frost to a thaw that
has wild honeysuckle throb
with tender green and catkins 
dangle from towering poplars.
Dainty raspberry-pink flowers
cap hazelnut tips and
bright red clusters festoon maples.
Squirrels, in a tizzy of liberation
from winter survival chase
flicking tails as the
sweet, high-noted trill of a
cardinal soars the landscape.
The sun shoots arrows of light
from the clear sky to the tangle
of woods below, revealing
green spears of trout lilies
piercing the dessicated leaves
of last fall enriching the loam of
another year's growing season.

And He Agreed

By no means unexpected, they 
are not a new discovery, but 
each time she sees them she is
surprised and surprisingly repulsed.
There she is, a baby, a child, an
infant and up to age four, there he is.
Daddy, her father, and something deep
within her spits: I have no father!
That vehemence no longer troubles her.
It simply is what it is. 'It' angers her
when her friends complain of their
fathers' interference in their social lives.
They return from school daily knowing
their interfering fathers will soon appear,
and sometimes, she knows, they are
glad. Her father will never show up;
he never has. She is his daughter
and it matters little to him. Little? 
Now there's an understatement,
galling, bitter - she knows those words.
Why does she turn over the dry
leaves of that 'family' photo album?
She hardly knows. To wallow in
bitterness, she guesses. Her grandmother -
not the one she doesn't know - has told
her an agreement was reached back then;
her father could avoid child-support
in exchange for surrendering her
completely to her mother.

Mothers, Their Daughters

The succession culminates eventually
with a whimper on one hand,
an explosive disaffection on the other.
Half-way to the denouement
mother and daughter
convince themselves they are
the very best of friends, sharing
confidences, somehow coevals of
affectionate convenience, aiding
and abetting, aspiring to a common goal.
A mere interregnum on the journey
that progresses from dependence
to haughty sovereignty, and back
again in time to hapless need. Sons
cede to their mothers the naive fiction
of dominance, deferring by filial
courtesy. Daughters adopt disbelief,
affront and rancour as their workaday
tools of eventual rejection, cloaking
their personas in the guise of the
errant mothers. The final tedious revenge
reveals the mother, white, frail and
wizened; the daughter, teeth gritted
in despair, proffering tender care, still
best friends with her own daughter.

The Mysteries of Life

Children, with their alert antennae
to alternatives to the familiar
observe and absorb all that
surrounds them, their minds
fully charged with discoveries and
curiosities, their memories banking
experience as they forge their way
through early years learning that
life is an excitingly spontaneous
adventure punctuated by 
mysterious absences, one raptly
fascinating the other an oddly grim
disadvantage, leaving a deep,
dark and puzzling vacuum. The
old warm and comforting softness
of the hairy old dog whose family
presence preceded his own,
suddenly absent, nowhere to be
seen, sight of its worn ball an odd
rebuke, not to forget. His parents'
silent unsmiling faces and wan
reassurances unfamiliar and
frightening ... a rehearsal for that
time his grandfather began forgetting
his grandson, failing ... failing to
visit evermore, despite questions and
pleas. And finally, those bad dreams, 
his mother abandoning him, she
has forgotten about him, where is she?
And when he asks at bedtime if she
will go away, she tells him never.

Spring Fantasy

Surely the stuff of a
spring fantasy, the sun
gleaming gold in a perfectly
pellucid sky, nuthatches
scrambling wrong way up,
cardinals trilling, mourning cloaks
and water striders returned to
woodland and creeks
respectively, the atmosphere
redolent of the sweet flush
of green teetering on the
edge of eruption along bare
tree branches. On the street
a fairy child with large bold 
eyes and darkly curled hair,
the merest wisp of a child
leads a tall white dog, 
large enough for its sprite
of a companion to ride astride,
nature's offspring all freed
from the crepuscular confines
of winter's morose cold strangle.

Recalled To Mind

Memorable, the least that
could be said of someone
neither a relative nor a friend,
someone unusual enough that
minuscule traces of him would
be fixed in distant memory.
And he was different, unprepossessing
yet remarkable, even in youth his
wizened body and oddly
preternatural intelligence placed him
apart from his coevals, on a lofty
plane that they could not, had no
desire to aspire to, mocking him as
weird. And he was. His name, 
unusual in itself lodged as firmly
as his acerbic wit, capable of
rising to sublime heights of 
self-deprecation, yet in so doing
identifying his genuine cerebral
brilliance. Kindly disposed to
another social outcast whose mind
fed ravenously upon his. Well
known that his shrivelled frame held 
twisted, painful viscera whose state
dictated an elevation of that
cutting wit as its whetstone. Long ago,
that was and suddenly, there: the name,
the place, the memory, the obituary.

Perspective

It tends to slip my mind
from time to time
that though I have
neither called nor beckoned
he is there, small but
imperious, the rightful ruler
of this modest manse 
we call home. His outrage
at our unforgivable oblivion
to his presence, as we
sit at table delectating
over our meal represents a 
personal affront he can not,
despite the goodness of his
little heart, overlook. Surely
we are slow learners
not yet realizing fully in 
the maturity of our long
years together that it is we
at his beck and call.

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Police patrol a neighborhood in the Boston suburb of Watertown. (Charles Krupa/AP)

The Hunt

Amazing how one person can run berserk
through our ordinary lives; a flaw of
nature that has equipped an individual
with extraordinary talent in
manipulating the public fervour
to celebrity while the great masses
go unnoticed. Then surfaces to public
notice the antithesis of those providers
of entertainment for the adoring masses;
instead universal symbols of incandescent
and inchoate rage whose glowering
menace is suddenly transformed to
demonic terror, holding hostage
the very notion of civilization,
committing slaughter in an explosion
of pyromaniacal fury, the bright colours
of human gore hanging from the remains
of destroyed civic infrastructure.
Out flood responders to save the maimed,
military to hunt the loathers of life,
those celebrants of death. A nation's
security resources on display with
armoured cars, helicopters hovering
deafeningly, men armed and armoured
to track and restrain the demented
holy warrior of Apocalypse.

Loving Charley

Charley, it must be said, is a
creature of rare good temperament.
Large, she is, her Bernese Mountain dog
inheritance. Her presence dominates
the atmosphere with cheer, as one
whose goodwill toward all, and
her rambunctious playfulness
caroming about in the woods,
snuffling out the divine taint of
objects truly unsavoury to roll upon
in utter ecstasy in total surrender to 
hedonistic pleasure not the least bit
excessive, albeit certainly obsessive.
Obedient to her human's call, she
approaches trustingly, reeking,
her black-and-white coat hosting
clinging evidence of spring-released
matter better left to nature to
delicately dispose of. Ah, her human
sighs, you're not a good dog at all, Charley,
you are the best dog in this world!

Boston, 15 April 2013

In praise of celebration of spirit and
excellence in achievement, an extroverted
crowd in an exuberance of life and its
challenges, the raucus gathering in its tens 
of thousands, a dizzying concatenation
of colour and commotion, sounds of
enjoyment and frenzy of motion; a
Norman Rockwell depiction of
America The Good and The Placid
suddenly face to face with terror as
the festivities succumb to fear and
horror in witness to an bloody atrocity,
peace shattered by an oversized volume
of blasting explosives and murderous
shrapnel penetrating life unprepared for
death, the complacent paint brush of normalcy
surrendered to the malign depiction of evil 
and the hellfires of brutish destruction;
Hieronymus Bosch utilizing his formidable
painterly skills to transform peace into
a horrible, raging inferno of hate.

 Unceasingly Dripping Tears

Yesterday the sun was a brilliant
warming disk in the springtime sky
and beneath that life-giving orb and 
the ocean-blue atmosphere, tens of
thousands of people ran a marathon,
laughed and cheered, until two
cataclysmic detonations blasted the peace
and joy into a bloody wreckage of 
human body parts disunited from the
whole, spewing blood and tissue
of human life in careless contempt.
The carefully executed exultation of
death's boon companions. The Grim Reaper's 
busy collection followed by shocked and 
resolute responders, hoping to secure
life swiftly ebbing as all about grey ash
stifled the air, littered the ground in
competition with detached flesh.
Today, as though nature herself is
reeling from the madness of hatred
and destruction, the atmosphere mourns,
the sun hiding its face from the horror,
the sheltering sky dark with sorrow,
unceasingly dripping acidic tears.

Doctor, Heal Thyself

They hobble and bobble slowly
through the hospital portals,
leaning on canes, on crutches,
grasping walkers, pushed in wheelchairs,
an endless procession of the
infirm, the aged, the unfortunate
desiccated masses coughed up
by time, inheritance and misfortune,
anxious and fearful, yet believing
in the magic of modern medicine,
looking to the doctor pressing 
and prodding, reading blood pressure,
taking pulses, listening to the
irregularity of their heartbeat and
strange sounds that shouldn't be there;
questioning them, ordering tests,
writing prescriptions and urging
life upon them, to solve what
puzzles and terrifies them, unwilling
to precipitously leave what they hold
most dear, their quickness. And he,
well beyond mere burden acts and
reacts, reassures and cajoles, his face
increasingly creased in the
concentration required to separate 
them, one from another, prompting
his subconscious to rebellion as he
peers at records, gazes upon the obese
and the frail, wan glances turning in
appeal, never noticing that their
doctor has succumbed to his own
neurons firing warning shots.

Happenstance

He was born in 1921, a November
child, and she in 1933, a child of
February, though it was March when 
they both departed this mortal coil
they shared. She loved animals and
pottering in her garden, and took
exquisite care of those she served
as a community public-health nurse,
while he, a former serviceman who
served in Britain and saw battle in
Italy, became a dedicated teacher in
the public school board, then a
principal. Involved in human rights,
poverty eradication and universal
education, a noble man, and a devout
Anglican, as was indeed she, a 
whimsical sentimentalist with love
and empathy to spare. What a truly
extraordinary pair. Pity they never met,
though their brief life stories sit
side by side on the dispatches page,
a couple whom surely fate might
have designated a natural pair,
together in death; never, as it happened, 
during their admirably fruitful lives.

Survivors

What they far prefer for pleasure
is planning their next exotic
getaway, a shipboard luxury cruise,
where their class is pampered and
comforted by the thought that cost
eliminates riff-raff. They may live
in a classless society but there are
still two major classes; those who
respond and the no-class. Right at
this moment, having perused the
morning's advert-flyers they are busy
hobbling out of their SUV and into
a succession of carefully selected
supermarkets. (They prefer to drive
large, expensive vehicles reasoning
their lives will be preserved should a
road accident occur despite their
careful vigilance.) They enter and
exit those stores, bags in hand,
snapping up the specials from each
until their mission concludes. Hurrying
as much as fragile age and corpulence
permits, no notice is taken of the appeal
of the Food Bank receptacle. In any
event, they are long retired folk, long
since paid any debt to society through
their exorbitant taxes; others can care
for the needy . They roar out of the
last parking lot, impatient to return
home, to peruse potentials for their
next horrendously overdue cruise.

Dismal Delights

I harbour no wish to deny
that I am a bigot; there, it's said.
People distinguish themselves
by their choices, their values,
their priorities and I admit to
standing in judgement, viscerally.
Those acquaintances who
proudly offer as a conversational
symbol of their cultural idiocy
an appreciation of Disneyland
fall precipitously a dozen notches
in my personal estimation,
incurring from me an immediate
re-assessment of their intelligence
quotient. That casual revelation
spurs within me a deep-seated sorrow
at the unfortunate limitations of
those who enthuse at the pleasures
to be had in exposure to an artificial
landscape of arrested childhood,
where lingering provides one with
an automatic investment in 
perpetual youth. So many are so
anxious to drink deeply from that
Disney fountain who would not
dream of venturing into nature's 
unadorned realm. As to those
unspeakable acts of child abuse,
exposing children to a life-long
lust for that magical kingdom of
commerce, they are guilty of
abandoning another generation to
undiscriminating artificiality,
boldly and unblushingly posing
as a life-ambition well realized.

Challenging Empathy

Even those irritated
by the demand of a ringing
telephone would be arrested
by the tremulous quality
of that voice, and moderate
the gruffness of response.
A vision leaps to mind
of an uncertain young woman
enrolled in the tradition
of a first job. Not perhaps
as menial as a dishwasher
or waiter, but as one
prepared to fulfill the
obligations of that proverbial
minimum-wage position.
She seemed hardly prepared, 
voice hesitant and appealing,
faint as her timid expectations
she awkwardly reads
the questions the poll is
concerned with, anxiously
awaits response, gaining
confidence measurably as
the interminably damned poll
goes on...and on...and on.

Resting In Peace

In civil society
death does not confer
the sting of censure.
For death, that ultimate
most final condition
that stills the voice
stifles the intent
and gives balm to the
countless harms foisted
on the hapless, represents
an adversary all face
equally, all fear in
equal measure. So,
when one is beckoned 
to that dark and silent
realm of forever,
witnesses must hush
their memories that
rankle, their unseemly
antipathy, turning from
spite to humble regret
audibly declaring respect
for the Dear Departed.

Existence of the Mind

They are as lesser gods
for they are omnipotent,
omniscient, their creations
live and prosper, or
they stumble and perish
and the odyssey of
their destiny is all in
the virile minds
of their authors
spelling out in minute
detail the incidents
and accidents that
comprise their creatures' lives
while we, the anxious 
reading public,
turn pages in a 
suspense of discovery,
succumbing to the
probing curiosity of the voyeur
that makes its comfortable
home in our restless minds.

Landscapes of Spanish Mountains

Photos: Courtesy of J.S. Rosenfeld

 

The Rapture Of Envy

She is an eye-stopper, a breath-catcher,
an apparition of exquisite beauty
a living object of transcendent ephemeral
presence as though an otherwordly being
casually walked out of one of those
sublime paintings by Alma-Tadema, a
creature of physical presence so
rapturously captivating one imagines
harps are being delicately plucked
alerting an angelic host to come and
behold the perfection to which rare
humanity can ascend. All eyes are
transfixed upon this woman, assuming
oblivion to her deliberately disruptive
presence, languidly strolling among
lesser mortals; she tall, willowy, blond 
hair coiffed to perfection, features set
in absolute symmetry, nature's finest
creation. Men and women alike
admire her poise, her meticulous costume,
gracious presence and loveliness,
absolutely delectable to the former,
utterly detestable, the challenged latter.

Yesterday's Child

Fiddleheads in the garden
slowly unfurling
Lilies-of-the-Valley
not yet belling
the Manchu Cherry
sprinkling white confetti
on the vibrant green
of urgent grass
and swallows executing
their preying arabesque
while beyond the sun,
a pyromaniac's frantic dream
slips behind the houses.

Sitting idly on the swing
spring air filters
through the maple's
tender thrusts
as bees target straight for home
and the mesmerizing hum
of the neighbour's mower
returns growth to order.

The children
never recall other years
only living in the warmth
of the breeze
pulling stray hairs
beyond the spiralling
loops of the bicycle.
Memory of another child
yaps close behind the
flushed faces of
this spring day's children.

Originally published in Early Harvest

My Friend

You are my friend of 
long standing and to a
certain degree your friendship
is valued as a level of trust
has been established
between us. We
communicate quite regularly,
you regaling me
with quips truly comical
and light renditions of life's
stark moments of truth.
When on rare occasion
it behooves me as a duty
of conscience as a moral
imperative to commemorate
and memorialize a tragic
human event of epic
dimension that I bring
to your reluctant attention
as a too-dreary recall
disturbing your
lightness of being --
lump it, my friend.

 

The Winter of Fearful 

Contemplation

Not all the esteemed elders are
prepared to venture into that looming
inexorable deep darkness of eternity
where consciousness, thought and
emotion are forever stilled.  The 
spirit that threatens departure
leaves us dispirited at the very
thought of the final act's stunning
finality. Why the hurry, and when did
our time elapse - we can scarce recall,
it is so unmercifully unfair, one old
friend wrote another - if I knew then
what I know now, I would have lived
so differently! Ah, said her friend,
nature makes the rules, she creates us
as innocents, to make our way as best
we can, giving us the starring role
in our very own life drama, to live,
love and have our experience at
this great game of hers, and then,
she time-stamps us on empty.

Cultures In Clash

The steady murmur of foot traffic
and clatter from crowds of shoppers
interrupted by a shrill staccato of a
child's deliberate wailing, the
decibels rising with the intransigent
stubbornness of a parent to a child's
unheeded demands though no
reciprocating demands of obedience
and behaviour are heard, as the
stone-faced mother hauls the tiny boy
alongside her stride, with three
little girls giggling close behind.
Someone is heard to mutter 
"Shut that kid up!", but no one
could and no one does, the mother
oblivious to the grumbling censure
that surrounds her. A dense, dark mood
descends as the children slip impishly
under clothing racks, calling to one
another in an unidentifiable tongue,
clearly not intimidated by the stares
and glares of opprobrium as adults
pull their shopping carts abruptly aside
to avoid disastrous issues of young
flesh meeting steel as they pop up
mirthfully from areas concealing
their presence in a game geared to a
playground which the establishment
has clearly been transformed into, and
all but one adult, who remains serenely
content her children are engaged in
play leaving her free to peruse the
goods, is righteously outraged.

Never Say Never

His father, a talented little Italian
pastry chef was a warm and jovial
man, his mother mean-tempered, and
he, neurotic, withdrawn, took somewhat
naturally to a profession swollen with
bright minds and hunched-over introverted
personalities. His wife knows full well
what she may or may not do; he makes
that abundantly clear. She once confessed,
weeping, his cutting observation that
'she wasn't the girl he married'. He,
quite obviously was the fellow she
married; question is why. Answer:
fearing loneliness for as she once said
she married 'late'. This dour, cranky,
self-obsessed fellow has challenged
our charitable impulses to see in him
hidden qualities but alas, over the decades
what met the eye was all there was -
detached indifference to human contact.
Retired now, he fully indulges his
hermit lifestyle. And then, as though
to defy caricature this man who would
never offer help to anyone, much less
loan out a tool or say hello to a neighbour
actually crossing the street to avoid the
prospect of a face-to-face greeting,
bought himself a flashy silver GM
rag-top; this guy - the very prime example
of morose prudence - a convertible in
a country of short summers and brutal
winters. A defiant stab at bitter destiny?