The Hellions

In repose, exhausted after
exhausting our none-to-spare
energy and well-meant patience
they are instantly transformed
from hellish imps, that dynamic
duo, our sibling puppies,
to innocently sweet newcomers
to life's short canine journey
accompanying our own. Their
precocious curiosity has no
discernible bounds, much less
do hopeful distractions detain
them from the serious business
of kleptomaniac destruction. 
Yet it was we who eagerly 
brought them into our inner
sanctum having weighed the
benefits of a neat and tidy life
sans concerns for other creatures'
well-being, finally coming down
decisively on the side of ditching
it all and harnessing ourselves
yet again to the pleasures and
pains of their comedic and
constant companionship.

The New Needy

Who might have imagined
when we were young
carefully buying whole food
groceries, stretching our income
as best we could to feed and
clothe three infants, finding
entertainment and recreation
within ourselves and free-to-access
green public spaces, content to
live with basics now deemed
insufficient in today's world 
of advanced economies where
the basics we might never
have imagined now represent
life's integral needs. Now,
when we shop for our groceries
we have ample means to pay
the basics and beyond. We
avail ourselves with casual
disregard for cost. And among
our weekly targets is a basket
of non-perishable foodstuffs
to be deposited for the local
food bank for those in society
whose needs have grown well
beyond the gentle poverty
in which we once lived.

Angelforms

It's so cold
chimney-smoke dangles
like wash from the sky.

Sparrows scrabble the snow
under our feeder
     claiming rights and
quarreling. I watch them

pantomiming life
priorities of territory
and prestige
      the battle

heating as two males
become a ball of wings
      and claws
        erupting in the air

carrying the struggle
to the snow-lapped ground.
Later, I see

angelforms in the snow.

 

Arras

A field of snow
growing
in the silence.

Sun softening
the gentle swells
illuminating 
crystals.

Wind bends
a long straw
and winds it slowly
ornamenting the
pristine blanket

with an oval
repeated
and repeated.

A mouse shelters
in a snowhole
nibbling windfallen seed;
leaving droppings
in the frozen nest.

Hare tracks
cluster under
shelter of a
snow-laden pine.

There -- the
outspread wings
of a falcon
imprinted on the snow.

-- and there the
hare tracks end.
There is no blood
to colour the
monomorphic plane.

A Grave Undertaking

Children stand behind a barbed wire fence at the Nazi 

concentration camp at Auschwitz as it is liberated by the 

Red Army(Keystone/Getty Images)

A Grave Undertaking

The excoriating venom of hatred
represents a human affliction of
visceral personal delight. The
reverse order of their paranoid
savagery is to do unto others
before they do you, of a people
with no interest in committing harm
on anyone. Psychopathic minds so
infused with the corroding malevolence
of hate they skulk in the shadows of
society until by some evil alchemy
they attain power and with it
create an avalanche of vicious 
slander and blame persuading
the majority that the minority
among them has plotted a universal
conquest of the morally unfit to
enslave the superior ethnic,
religious tribes -- so the solution
can only be the timely mass
eradication of the Jews, sub-human
lice after all, deserving of their
hideous fate. Madness prevailed 
until sanity returned and the bigots
the odious racists, the anti-Semites
brought low, the ghostly spirits
of the dead haunting those who
argued within that the tragedy of
the Jews was, after all, none of
their business, but one certainly
felt badly for them. An historical
hiatus, a new nation born from the
old, and behold, Israel! the mass
psychosis of brutal menace born
of blind hate is also born anew.

 

The S/Washbucklers

The inquisitive recklessness of
the two intrepid adventurers whose
shadows haunt this house is
impossible to stifle. The hairy
black puppies tug and pull and 
bury their muzzles in the food
baskets slowly emptied of contents
into the refrigerator, creating a
vacuum within as they finally
clamber aboard and tumble
into the interior when all that
is left is the tantalizing odours
of the emptied baskets. But oh,
look! the laundry basket, warm
with dryer-tumbled wash creates
yet another frantic diversion as
the tiny tykes schooled well in
mischief race away with socks and
underwear, shirts and tea towels
grubbing and ravaging them
before they're retrieved. There's
something appealing about baskets
and the treasures within, like
those of the dishwasher loaded 
with rinsed platters, pots and pans,
retaining still the irresistible 
fragrance of food, luring the puppies
into a licking frenzy. All in the day
of creatures new to life on their
journey to civilized, sober and
sadly inevitable staid maturity.

Just A Friend

He is an intelligently civil
man, genial to a fault. In 
appearance tidy, though most
physically unprepossessing; an elf
of a man with a ready rictus of a
smile, red nose and cheekbones
and sparse, fair hair above
watery blue eyes that manage
to be penetrating all the same.
Of Swiss origin, he inherited
the custom of preciseness. 
This is a man with the soul of
an accountant, a numbers man
par excellence, inherently
fastidious about ensuring quality
for monetary investment. A
chirpy greeting and pleasantries
to follow invariably degenerate
into drawn-out complaints of
social institutions and his
cranky interventions, rarely
giving satisfaction beyond the
opportunity to register disapproval.
A moralist, very few manage to
meet expectations. His medical
history is an open book should
one politely enquire. Rigidly
authoritarian, he disdains the
endemic permissiveness that
permeates the social contract. 
Other than that, a perfectly nice
fellow, our casual acquaintance.

 

Deeply Devilish

Singly manageable, but barely,
sibling puppies in a tandem of
mischief representing another
dimension of behavioral lunacy
altogether. Certainly it is humane
to retain their companionship
intact for they have, after all,
suffered the trauma of separation
from their mother and the
confused loss that entails. So
now the living toys slight in
size yet possessed of mordant
deviltry dominate our days
as futile attempts to tame the 
little beasts carry on while they
conspire in plots to outwit the
wiser species incapable of
dimming their rampaging
instincts, two tiny black tornadoes
of hair and muscle storming
through the shattered tranquility
of a happily shared  home.

Dog Lovers

The world that we inhabit is
comprised of many communities
of like-minded people whose
sensibilities and sentiments
transcend race, heritage, culture
in shared values of their wide
embrace of the natural world
in general and their love of dogs
in particular. Among them, 
there are no strangers. In the
company of companions of a
completely different species that
complement our lives there is
instant rapport and trust. Each
can trust the other to appreciate
the pleasure and deep dependency
shared between human and dog
communicating and sharing
gladness. And when despair
befalls one in bereavement, 
instant comfort radiates toward
the one deprived in a too-early
death by those whose depth of
understanding evolves from the
background of like experience.

Living Dangerously

She is single, no family of
her own, with a mental health
affliction, quite aside from the
compulsion to consider the feral
cats in her community her familial
obligation, but she hunts them and
traps them and has them spayed
and neutered, then scours the
neighbourhood for good homes,
for her own apartment will burst 
in an explosion of furious fur and
sharp claws should she add to
the dozen representing her
adopted family. Those feral urchins
forced to live the good life of
care and affection seem to hold
regular scheming sessions of
escape while miaowing their
fill of fish and cream. As for
those too elusive to neutralize
their breeding habit, kittens too
are fair game for collection and 
dispersal. One pair has been shopped
out to several volunteer homes, 
their kittenish penchant for 
derring-do traumatizing people
with the suspense of impending
doom, so they're returned to the
cat lady who in turn convinces
her own mother yet again, that five
cats per home is none too many.
And now that aged cat lover too
stands wringing her hands as the
rescued duo daily perform their
fearless acrobatics atop the narrow
top rail of the second story banister
overlooking two flights below.

 

Winter Games

Like a madcap Loony Tunes
version of Huskies harmonized
and harnessed in an Iditarod
there they are, the ragtag five
muffin-sized doglets separately
leashed and firmly held in
"control" by their middle-aged
walker, nicely bundled in
downfilled jacket, toque and 
mittens, galumphing every
which way in a discord of direction,
exerting their will, not hers,
hauling the smiling woman
after them, skittering left
then right, across the icy
woodland trail, she pleading
half-heartedly for a break,
they finally accommodating to
a screeching halt as she
careens on her dignified backside
down a snowy slope,
whooping like a child.

Nature's Ironies

Avocet, American
-Recurvirostra americana    © Parks Canada

Nature's Ironies

In the spring, he told me,
he will visit with us, my baby
brother, on his way to Point Pelee.
On the very verge of retirement
he long planned to more seriously
pursue his love of dedicated
bird sighting. Not an ornithologist
but a biologist, there is much
he plans to do, in his love of
nature even while nature has
returned the fervour of his
commitment to the wryest turn 
in her redoubtable arsenal
of tricks. Today marks his 65th
birthday. Only a few months ago
he was diagnosed with the curse
of an inoperable cancer. So his
time has been taken up with
rounds of chemotherapy, the
results of which will be studied
to determine how long he may
enjoy his anticipated retirement
years. Tonight, though, he's
having a party, friends over, and
a birthday cake his wife baked.

NewsHound

Who ever heard of an
intellectual canine? Smart dogs,
intelligent dogs, certainly.
Smart dogs recognize routine
and intelligent dogs can be
taught to bring the morning
papers to the breakfast table.
Anything to be recognized and
praised. But what of the really
precocious dog who loves the
newspapers? Who cares nothing
for praise but is so consumed
and fascinated by the news
he's prepared to devour it all
digesting the news much as
his human companion, a
true news hound does. Her
dog thoughtfully chews on
the news of the day awaiting
a discussion to follow, reasonably
enough. When all he hears in 
response to his preparation
for a serious chat is "bad dog!"

Sibling Rivals

Twin terrors, infant imps
alike in their frenzied antics
unalike in their gendered
propensities, he at least submits
willingly to the daily brushing
of his long silky coat whereas
she typically female more
independently assertive, insists
she is perfectly capable of
grooming herself. He is the one
for whom preventive obstacles
represent challenges easily
overcome; she on the other hand
is fleet as the wind, gambolling
irrepressibly taunting him to
catch her, while both become
at times physically adversarial,
snarling and tussling, wrestling
in a whirling ball of sinew,
muscle, hair, teeth and claws,
abruptly melting into a nestling
confection of sibling comfort
and trust - evaporating just as
suddenly in the instinctive rush to
claim possession of their food
bowls, ferocious little thugs
of hard-wired animal survival.

Button, 2003 - 2012

Nature's Balm

There exists a mysterious
element of inheritance surely
as though creatures are
programmed in a strategy to
seamlessly repeat and replace
one another, bred to complement
the emotional needs of people
who see in their canine
companions the arcane spirit and
acquired habits of those that
preceded them. It is as though
grief for the one lost to age's
inevitable descent into death
moves Nature to provide
another, gifted with like
qualities and the precocious
sense of identifying clues
leading to the inspiration of
repeated mannerisms and
sensitivities of the original.
Their presence a consolation.

Immaculate Perception

This house of ours, so
ordinarily immaculate
has become a piquantly hellish
place since inviting two
sibling puppies to share a 
home with us. Some trade-off
that is, for the ordered neatness
and predictability of a house
lacking the substance and
vigour of youthful joy and
exuberance, a pair of
devilishly wild puppies'
presence replete with laughter
and amazing acrobatic
cheekiness, feats of silly
courage and loving excess
weighed against staid, elderly
boredom, and a tidy home.
On the other hand, of course,
they are action-omnivorous
curious and adventurous little 
monsters and we may 
not yet survive this frantic
paradisaical exposure.

 

Absent Neighbours

Just as well it is winter
and miserably frigid, one
supposes. Puppies have to
become accustomed to all kinds
of weather, after all, and while
duty not yet calls them, we
take up the challenge 
as befits their human
companions since time
beyond memory to ease them
into the backyard ritual
of relieving themselves there,
not in the house. They shiver
in the cold as we do, their
tender little paws abused
by snow and ice, but our
gratitude at performance
and our loudly effusive praise
delights them and us, both.
Just as well, then, it's winter,
no neighbours out in their
backyards to hear our lunatic
whoops and yelps of
celebratory commendation.

Revolving

Is then all life an integral
continuum, an ongoing
evolution from life to death
and back again to life as
we reproduce ourselves
and each succeeding generation
takes up where their predecessors
were interrupted by the allotted
sands of time flushing through
that interminable hourglass of
opportunity in existence
toward its inexorable 
expiration date? Refreshing
and renewing the awaiting
life cycle ordained by Nature
that we undergo faithful to her 
carefully brilliant protocol...?

Haven't We?

Our social history is one of
imperial colonialism lording it
over less socially, economically
advanced cultures, even cultures
of ancient heritage that the hubris
of ours found wanting, and now,
those times are less hallowed, the
spirit of domination and oppression
that zeitgeist acknowledged
with the penance of shame as
we humbly teach ourselves
the virtues of tolerance and
respectful understanding, to make
amends so we may like ourselves,
spurning our past. Now we are
tolerant of those who in history
felt somewhat as we did,
sublimely entitled to crude
and bloody conquest in a
surging scimitar-led campaign
to forcibly enlist those not of the
faith to surrender ignominiously
and penitently to Islam. Now, we
fatuously empathize with their
campaigns of murderous raging
jihad murmuring sympathetically
past one atrocity after another,
that we have, after all, offended
their theistic sensibilities.

Study In Contrasts

Each is dear beyond compare
but just for the sake of the challenge
let us briefly and with love and
affection enumerate the contrasts.
In their precociously early years
grandchildren strike us as 
miniature versions of ourselves
and they instinctively realize
that our purpose in their lives
is to entertain them. Puppies, 
in their gamboling formative years
entertain us. They are attentive
to us, fulfilling our needs in
exchange for love and theirs
has no limits and few constraints
content with our company as we
mature together. Grandchildren
know us as 'old', likely equalling
mental incapacity, incapable of
understanding their language
as they spurn the formality of
ours, along with our stone-age
musical preferences. They are
horrified to view us dodderers
dancing; our pups are intrigued by
such admirable shenanigans. No
longer in approaching the age of
consent do our grandchildren look
to us for entertainment, but to
endlessly fund their entertainment,
their advanced education, their
adult lives. Exasperated? Amused.

Jack and Jill

In a madcap unison
of puppy sibling action
time and speed
take on new meaning.
They are a brace of
small black dervishes
in perpetual lunatic
motion, a blur of
frenzied action
devouring distance in
an instant of
frenetic motion;
here, then there
and beyond in an
eyelid's lazy drop
obscuring reason and
intent into the speed 
of lightning motion.

Two Of A Kind

Small, black and hairy
they are everywhere at once,
each following the other
following you, intent on
missing nothing,
curiosity write large in
their puppy genetic code
a pair of spirited innocents
mischief writhing within
eager to escape the confines
of disciplined patience,
their dark bright eyes
sparked with wonder 
at the world they're so
busy discovering that no
one else before them has
ever imagined existed.

 

To The Woods!

For those with a fascination
for natural gems this day
was a perfect opportunity
to seek them out. One had only
to venture outside the comfort
of warmth and boredom on a
cold, windy winter day
whose skyscape alternated
between blue and white
whenever the cloud cover
shifted to reveal the beaming
sun prepared to illuminate
the scene below. Into the woods
we went, where every tree
and shrub and the forest floor
were fluffed with the pure
white of fresh-fallen snow.
Earlier weather events left
layers of ice gleaming like 
priceless diamonds against 
the sky ravished by the sun.

Compassion

There are those who will
never understand your
grief the loss of a
presence dear to you
has caused, others for
whom your loss is
expressed in personal
relief that it is you
not they who have
been bereaved, and
yet others who tell you
to brace up and
recall the good things
and just accept the sad 
reality of the inevitable. 
And then there are those
whose uncompromised
compassion is a soothing
balm dispensing with words
in favour of a deep gaze
leading to the brief but
lasting harbour from
haunting pain deep 
within the firm warmth 
of an empathetic embrace.

Kindred Spirits

It is a wholly unprejudiced
affectionate affair between
her and him, their devotion
to one another clear
in their obvious focus 
on the intimacy of concern
for the other. Tongues are
not wagging, though they
happen not to share a
common background,
ethnicity or culture; their
love merely crosses the
species barrier as the
young woman in full blush
of booming youth and
beauty walks happily beside
the large brindle hound,
his long ropey tail swinging
in contentment, her arms
quick to encircle her
companion in an expression
of unalloyed joy at having
discovered reciprocal trust,
admiration and affection
in an abundance of kindness.

Diamond Gleam

The early morning sun
gleams, glistens and
glitters on the handiwork
of yesterday's elements
choreographed by nature
to perform their roles
to flawless perfection.
On cue, the darkly dense
sky of pewter released
snow and the wind
blew it into every
interstice, cranny and
crack, until the world
was white and bright
and new again. Then the
icy atmosphere relented
to freezing rain, generously
coating and enfolding
trees with the brilliant
burden of sparkling ice.
A scene of ravishing beauty
transforming the landscape
to a winter wonder, sun
adding the diamond touch.

The Delirium of Being

It truly is a wickedly 
icy winter day, wind
whipped to a frenzy of 
chill, underfoot treacherous
icy conditions, but the sky
bright with golden sun.
On the woodland trail
suddenly galumphing
toward us, the spectacle
of a pink-jacketed
Irish Setter pup, gleeful
with the freedom from
constraint, wallowing
joyfully in the snow,
then headed straight 
toward us, its long
puppy tail swooping
like a pendulum in greeting
leaping on our chests,
offering its free affection
to affable strangers and
frantic owner alike, this
young creature infused with
the delirium of discovery.

 

The Torment of Absence

What a relief. No longer
a need to fill his water bowl,
to find a space in bed not
occupied by his warm
little body. No complaints
when his dinner is overdue.
No need to clip his nails,
brush his haircoat, trim 
his face and tiny paws,
take him for long woodland
walks, or to the detested
veterinarian. He's gone,
no need to share sofa space,
caution him not to bark,
nor be concerned his hearing
is going, his eyesight
impaired so he can longer
negotiate stairs. His hair
getting thin, his strange
new bumps, his long naps.
He's gone. Left us. Now
the only need is to 
somehow, miraculously, 
restore his presence.