Floral Bouquet

Bright, hot-pink blossoms of
thimbleberry adorn the dark-green
foliage of maple-leaf pretenders,
wafting an exquisite fragrance on
the sun-dappled hill as it stretched
beyond, into the cool shadowy green
of the forest. Within the bower of
trees, foliage whispering gossip
from branch to branch, sunrays
still reach to highlight bunches 
of startling-red baneberries. Bedding
grasses perfume the atmosphere with
their thick, heady emanations. Daisies
lift their impudent heads amidst
equally saucy buttercups and pale,
modestly yellow cinquefoil flowers
amongst exquisitely neat pink
fleabane blossoms intertwined with
purple-headed cowvetch. A divinely
aromatic bouquet of the woods on
a perfect summer's day amble.

What To Do?

He always took exceptional
care, where he parked his
sleek silver coupe with its
neat little sunroof. Already
driven exclusively for five
summers only and with lean
mileage, it received tender
treatment. Ownership to be
transferred next year to his 
come-of-age granddaughter.

The driver who hurried out
of the shwarma shop, half his
age, eagerly unwrapping lunch,
failed to check before gunning
that huge GMC SUV out of its
parking spot, ramming it into
the sleek silver passenger side
of his innocent little Honda
as he passed, unable to

swerve aside. She apologized
profusely and then again at the
station as they registered the
unfortunate collision with police.
Telling him gratefully how much
she appreciated his calm demeanor
utterly void of frenzied shouting,
of nasty cursing, raging blame. 

A Woodland Ramble

Delicate Damselflies flicker
gracefully on the heated early
summer atmosphere, loitering
among the fresh green understory 
as though to assess the haven-quality
of the bracken, the baneberry and the
dogwood in the golden haze, soon
to disappear as the dark morning 
clouds speedily swallow the sun
and thunder bellows its intentions.
The hoverflies and bees, dragonflies
and skippers will not celebrate
the oncoming storm, but the daisies
and the buttercups, fleabane and
cinquefoil, colouring the forest
clearings in a splendid display
will take it all in joyful stride.

In The Storm's Eye

So hot and humid we hardly
cared to shrug on raincoats. As
though to defy nature we blithely
took little note of the menacingly
bruised clouds scuttling the sky;
no awkward nuisance of a weather
front would put us off... And it did 
not. Not when we came abreast of
that old tree we'd long known to have stood
beside the creek and the bridge crossing
it, now twisted and hurled impossibly from
one bank to the other, foliage a sad
tumble of awry green surprise. Not
as the wind picked up action quite
measurably, swooping over the canopy
of stressed leaves and branches, nor
when, as happened, our boots slithered
in the mire and muck of a forest floor
drenched beyond absorbent capacity.
In the thick of the woods, trunks
gnashed one another, branches
tangled in frustrated misery, sending
seed pods on our hurrying heads. Thunder
boldly approached, bellowing warning
of impending saturation. Soon enough
the clash of rain against the forest
signalled arrival, as darkness captured
the woods and us in a furious torrent.

The Mountain Falls

The long mountain switchedbacked road led 
to the destination that memory recalled insisting 
it be revisited so yearners could again experience 
that ephemeral exposure to nature raw and 
magnificent in power, scope and furious beauty 
they fondly remembered. In the pounding rain they
set off, the trail affording a degree of shelter under 
a bright green canopy weeping the excess of the downpour. 
In a landscape luxuriantly strewn with boulders 
shed timelessly by the mountain, elderly, shaggy-barked
yellow birch rose to meet the sodden grey clouds and 
the understory of dogwood and fern lapped at the rain.
Gnarled old roots wrapped about rocks, holding aloft
ambitious tree trunks, eager to reach their potential. 

Within a granite crease parting the mountain's side, 
the mountain stream, transformed to a tumultuously 
raging river overflowing its banks, thunders
mightily down the course of its raceway, tumbling 
over and around boulders and wind-fallen trees, gurgling,
frothing, struggling and deafeningly prevailing over 
all obstacles, puny in the mighty turmoil of the 
storm-chased, rain-swollen intemperance of a cataract
spuming along the cleft of the granite gorge,
a tormented torrent of frantic watery power.

Evanescent Alert

Observe, clouds, dark with their watery burden 
dangle over mountain tops just as 
skeins of vapour rise from the valleys, 
diaphanous, white as a ghostly presence, 
lifting from the vibrant verdancy, the 
green canopy sodden and brilliantly hued.  
The mountain road rose steeply, curving
its tenuous ribbon of glistening pavement 
around and about the steep sides, passing 
the lush grandeur of the forest, and high 
above a hawk soars, surveying its territory, 
riding the wind. The inexorable rise 
introduces lone vehicles cresting the pass to 
the outer margins of cloud stalled in their 
skyward progress, impaled on the granite 
mountain stubs rising above the treeline
 until soon all is engulfed within the 
wisp-grey mist, dense enough to obliterate 
sight-lines, obdurate enough to shelter 
the landscape from eyes orienting to an 
absence of observable boundaries, entrenching
danger into the misadventure of a scenic 
mountain pass threading a mountainside 
on the occasion of an overwhelming 
storm under deceptive low cloud cover.

Family Matters

Generous to the fault of
inflicting intrusive stranger-status
upon a pair of brief and casual
interlopers, the genial hosts
firmly insist the welcome extends
to sharing this family's garden party
in recognition of the young lad's
graduation and imminent 
introduction to college. Names
and familial status exchanged as
aunts and uncles, cousins and
siblings, grandparents and friends
extend companionship and food
and drink pressed upon the uncertain
pair. Connections find their place as
teens roast marshmallows around
the firepit then file off for games
as the infant in the extended family
is handed off to one adoring member
then another, and group photos taken
to recall the event a half-century later.
Talk turns to apiaries and their sweet
product, gardening and valuable ideas
shared, then to travel and impressions,
and finally the politics of the land.
Until, parting, the reluctant guests
fully recognize the congeniality of
family ties and the functionality of
authentic collegiality, approachable
in human society capable of sharing
their emotional social wealth when
good fortune and fortuitously rare
serendipitous genes bear fruit.

The Jack Russell

He is elderly and quietly dignified,
anxiously responding to the
unrelentingly firm instructions
passed from the lips of the woman
he clearly adores. His soft brown eyes
pleading for reconsideration as though
prepared to pledge he will be on
best behaviour, though it is hard
to imagine otherwise for this eager
little fellow. As though to appeal to a
creature of a lesser order, he turns
his head to observe the shop's most
recent interlopers, small snout pink,
errant cowlicks of stray locks in a
tortoiseshell of white, beige, brown
falling across his mournful eyes 
as though to elicit kindly intervention.
He has beguiled us, and we assure the
shopkeeper his presence pleases us.
But she is adamant, firmly directing
the little fellow and his companion, a
sedate and elderly, exceedingly obedient
Basset hound, into the office from whence
their baffled eyes follow our intrusive
presence within their environs.

The Bookshop

Stepping across the portal
there they are, colourfully
jacketed, neatly arrayed
clamouring to be held,
the literate, creative products
of many minds, a booklover's
magical landscape of bound
promises, reviewed and rated,
awaiting the possession of
caring eyes, eager minds and
impressionable sensibilities.
They beckon, irresistibly,
and we hover, anxious to lose
ourselves in those worlds
of expressive words.

Boadicea

Looking up to me as I
looked down at her I informed
her humbly how honoured I
felt to be in her presence, to
finally meet the legendary 
figure she represented. She,
for her part, amiably and quite
without artifice or guile,
gracefully accepted my
appreciation of her historical
status. No air of solemn piety
or overweening pride
surrounded her, but a 
comfortingly sedate posture
as of an aged and valued
canine companion her
adoring humans, recognizing
in their rescue a nobility of spirit,
named the Basset hound who
returned their pride in their
regally composed companion 
with beaming, loving fidelity.

 

Mountain Cathedrals

From that rare height
attained through no mean effort,
the perspective of the landscape
is altered so significantly
awe results from the near presence
of an altered geology and the
far-sighted prospect of an
even more distant landscape.

The surrounding forest obtains
a mystical air; spruce, pine
and oak sculpted, the sky
elaborating on their
shape, size and texture.
Granite outcroppings of rare
dimension and outsized character
staging the presentation of a

sublime panorama, with carved,
green valley below, summits
bulking under gathering
clouds, ovenbirds and thrushes
billing their glorious songs
reverberating through the
forest of mountain cathedrals.

Strangers, Again

Met entirely by chance, therefore
these must surely be friends
not yet recognized. As casual
strangers, a brief and serendipitous
courtesy as we pass on a woodland
trail, pausing to greet and exchange
the most mundane pleasantries
of trifling brevity. Yet a measured
nuance in acknowledgement leaves us
in one another's orbit to linger, expand
the conversation and recognize in
each other a bond neither has any
immediate wish to sunder by
parting. We linger, inviting one the
other to a narrative then a rejoinder
and are drawn deeply into a
connection of civil familiarity
as though discovering new kinships.
When parting does occur, a conflict
of satiety in social intercourse and
regret at its finality ensues. And we
muse how strange life can be when a
casual encounter exposes one to the
presence of surely the dearest of
people, such brief trusted friends
and suddenly, strangers again.

 

The Toll

We feel welcome, at ease
to familiarize ourselves with
yet another landscape of nature's
grand theatre. Above loom mountains
and here, where we have entered
stage left, old hemlock and pine,
oak and maple, understoried by
dogwood and ferns. The clamour of
a mountain stream rushing down the
mountainside, gushing over and
between boulders where moss grips
tightly; there rise clouds of blackflies
on their mission of unwelcome
flesh extraction, a toll of passage.

Laconia, New Hampshire

Like Mongol invaders they are,
riding out of great desert plains
these barbarians, grim and bearded,
tough and sinewed with their
own resolve of conquering
the open road, with all others subdued 
in their quelling, noisome wake,
come the metal, wheeled steeds
of New Hampshire Motorcycle Week
riding the environment through
fog and pelting rainstorms, Interstates
cowed by their resolute phalanxes,
the warriors of cycling. From the
Steppes of Central Asia to the
highways of America -- Mongols
on the move. Genghis Khan's 
genetic heirs, DNA-specific,
helmeted, fierce warriors of the
ancient world transformed to
unhelmeted racing dervishes of the
American road where the motto
Live Free or Die is taken seriously
-- and so they choose to live free and
also to court Death, willing enough
to oblige from time to time.

The Primal Elements

A cloud ceiling so low and
darkly menacing it could pose
as oncoming night eager to camouflage 
the remains of a day sloppy with the
poor housekeeping of untoward
weather events. It will again
result in a downpour, yet
the thunderous roar muting
the sounds of all else does not
descend from above, but rises
relentlessly in a chaotic symphony
of force from recent overnight
rains like monsoons rushing
madly in clear, tumbling spurts
spread over the side of the mountain.
The river of rainwater spuming
and sparkling, hurled over boulders
and granite raceways, foaming
thick white bolsters of eddies
as it splurges richly, finding its
inexorable passage through the
futile resistance of rockfall and
pockets of scree, sending fine mists
freely luxuriant into the atmosphere
already sodden and preparing for yet 
another feint from above, to be 
inundated in yet another initiation 
rite in the conflicting puissance of 
the elements of granite and weather.

 The Mountain Fastness

The mountains pinnacle the sky,
thrusting aeries of fierce-eyed eagles
toward scudding clouds. The placidly
vast bulk of the earth-squatting giants
send thin vapours of mist rising to meet
the clouds pierced by the summits,
dank and immobile. A long shudder
of silence has replaced the roaring
reverberations of thunder, the
mountains morose under the weight
of the icy barrage of relentlessly
repetitive downpours. A sullen assault
on the mountains' sovereign rule...
the elements of stolid geology sustaining
dignity spiting the impulsive strategy 
of nature's persistent weather machine.

 

Loitering in the Forest

Hemlock and oak, pine
and yellow birch predominate,
their seedlings and saplings
stippling the rich loam
of the forest floor. The
understory of ferns and
dogwood suffuse the density
of the mountain trail with a
vibrant clamour of
green, dark and light and
shades between as sun rays
penetrate the needles and foliage
to kiss the eager floral heads
of lilies of the valley, their tiny
cream bells luminous with presence
among towering pink-lanterned
Ladies Slippers, sorrel and white,
starry bunchberries abloom.
Down the mountain slopes
streams roister over rockfalls
littering the brooks' raceway
toward the river below. And
we, ambling along the 
cindered, damp trails
alongside the mountain stream,
its thunderous tumbling over
rocks hurled from far above,
move so slowly in constant
discovery, we are loitering 
in the forest, watching the foaming
water, its glitter washing the stone,
spray creating a faintly elusive
rainbow to tease the hover flies
as swallowtails lazily drift
from trees to bracken,
the atmosphere reposed in a
singular brash tranquility of presence;
the cycle, motion of life renewed.

Blackflies

We are simply no match
in patient cunning
silent, deadly determination
the technique of those
flesh-consuming monsters
adept as they are
at striking and extracting
tissue and blood
leaving victims in pain...
assassins! Searing, burning
anguish in place of intact
skin, left poisoned, mutilated
by vicious forest predators
infesting mountains, woodlands
and crystalline, rock-strewn
streams that unwary ramblers
traipse in their trusting
innocence infused with
enthusiasm of all that
is identified with nature 
while she in turn simply 
returns the compliment in
her very own inimitable way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mountain Trail

The wood sorrel and mosses,
those minuscule forests of
primitive provenance draw the eye
with the sprightly freshness of
their glimmering verdancy lighted
like a cool, colour-enhancing fire
by the all-pervasive rain. The
mature canopy of oak and maple,
birch and poplar absorb and shelter,
drinking deeply of the storm,
filtering through the foliage and
dense needles of hemlock, pine
and spruce as the excess lights the
luminous pink of Ladies Slippers'
globular blooms, brightening the
sodden understory of ferns and
dogwood, glistening with the
lacquer of the storm's fierce
onslaught. The pelting rain hardly
heard against the surging clamour
and the dominating thunder of the
mountain stream, surging and
billowing over stolid, huge boulders
lining the granite raceway of the
slope at the mountain's base.

Landscapes

Life, in Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Has It Gone?

Last night, comfortable
in bed, unable to capture sleep,
my muse appeared to rescue me
from restless boredom,
entertaining and teasing
with the grace of her language
the genius of her imagination
the utter brilliance of her design
offering me poetry so perfectly
reflective of all I most admire
it put me perfectly at easeful rest
promising myself I would 
commit to flagrant, inner-core
plagiarism of her ethereal
grace of creative expression
at the earliest possible opportunity
and finally I fell fast asleep
mind freed of all absorption.