Repenting at Leisure

You've aged, old friend, you're old
now. No longer the virile man
with the perpetually wandering eye
you once were. As a man of the world,
are you happy? Satisfied with your choices?
Philandering did suit you well. Your
wife, younger by far and certainly
comelier than thou, not so much. She
tolerated in her love for you and the
comforts life with you offered as 
much as she could. But when your
flings transgressed flagrant she too
made a lifestyle adjustment, leaving
you, now that the children were mature.
A solitary life was not what you sought,
but no amount of promises and pledges
on your part of remorse and reform
convinced her to return to her lonely
husband, though she has seen fit
to forgive. Many years have passed
and  your anxious search for a 
replacement companion has failed
despite numerous rehearsals. Your
standards, admittedly, are high: the
freshness of youth, athleticism, style
and appearance all featured, but
candidates have failed. In despair, a
cat has jointed your silent household,
a delicate, most attractive and needy
feline, she is. Myriad trips abroad to
exotic far-off shores have broadened
your cosmopolitan perspective, enriched
the experiences of your life. But you
smile so infrequently and seem almost
morose at times. No need to respond,
the question was frivolously rhetorical;
just a reminder that we all make our
choices and live to regret them.

Angels on a Pinhead? 

The discussion now raging within
academia, between biologists and 
philosophers hinges on the mind. What
is thought and consciousness? It
is what makes us human. It is
the expression of our intelligence,
our realization of what we are
how we make use of our emotions
the link between existence and
survival. The locus of our minds
where thought and memory reside
appears in question, however.
Where logic might have it that
we must conclude that our very
consciousness rests within the
brain, the debate questions that
assumption, quibbling that too
much is unknown by science
of the link existing between
the body and the functions of
its operating system where neurons
fire impulse and movement,
thought and the unique individuality
of a mind, ours alone whose source
arcanely befuddles other minds.

 

Never Too Soon

The winter we welcomed so
fervently in December, appreciating
the newfallen snow's virtues in
icing the dreary spectacle of bared
trees and the skeletal aspect of a
late fall landscape had worn thin
its welcome by April, yet still it
lingered. The unseasonal cold, the
brazen wind, frustrating snow events
turned to freezing rain as we
angrily yanked the welcome mat
for one that crabbily read: "Go already!"
Yet winter mocked us and refused
to exit. Now, as May approaches
and thick ice layers still linger,
the sere, desiccated appearance
of the urban forest mimics fall.
Except, thank you, nature, the 
forest floor nearby our home has
been spring-colonized by trout lilies
preparing to bloom, and wild
strawberry greens are in evidence,
so too signs that Serviceberry will
bloom briefly, and the first evidence
of trilliums remembering their spring
greeting have burst from the soil...!

April 2015 in Nepal

It is a dread conversation taking
place, one the villagers have due
cause to fear taking place within the
very bowels of the earth beneath
their feet and under the vast bulk of
the sacred Himalayan mountain
towering majestically above. The
equilibrium of existence sundered
as everything shifts and leans,
groans, growls and tumbles
trapping the unprepared unfortunates
beneath the ruins of their homes, the
landscape an unfamiliar devastation
of sound, fury and wreckage. Their
world is shocked and shattered,
the cries of the desperate, in their
death agonies filtering through the
rising, opaque clouds of wreckage
dust, survivors wailing in grief
injured and desperately seeking
loves ones, the world so suddenly
transformed into a malign, hostile
monster of unimaginable destruction.

The ChildVerse

There are shuddering memories
redolent of infancy which
adults shrug as emerging imagination
in exposure to life evoked within
developing minds when only the
very young hear the hissing and
smell the heat of strange animals
beneath their beds and only they
see the reality that lurks in
crepuscular bedroom corners
goading them to panicked screams
for rescue from threats their parents
scold them for. In their parallel
universe of hobgoblins and odd
beasts mockery is made of the
supposed sanity of ours. These are
the realities of the young, some 
of whom 75 years later recall and
wonder why what children discern
is shielded from mature senses
even while evil makes its 
triumphant passage through time 
and historical space, given the
nomenclature that denies a child's
early realization of the world
of impending peril it has entered.
Life as a continuous nightmare...

Inscrutably Lewd

Exotic dancing is just one part of the show that the Chongqing Star River Band puts on at funerals
(Tang Ming For The Globe and Mail)

 

Inscrutably Lewd

Oh, those contemptibly rude
peasants, suddenly with wealth
to spare travelling abroad and so
deeply embarrassing mother China
with their uncosmopolitan
wretched behaviour. And on the
home front little better. Whatever
happened to ancestor worship,
silent contemplation, and grimly
going about one's business? What
has happened to meek obedience
to genteel harmony? Funerals
once accompanied with the sombre
dirges of professional mourning
troupes grieving for the dearly
departed once surrendered to
traditional opera to ease the 
heartache of loss. But now, NOW
movie screenings to entertain the
devastated, and strippers to
enliven the mood of the bereaved:
"Such illegal operations have
disrupted local entertainment
markets and corrupted social mores"
sniffed the Ministry of Culture.

Departure Lounge

It is quite the regal edifice
prominently placed, large and
spacious, well designed, furnished
and equipped with modern
technical marvels to service the
needs of the metropolis. It seems
like an exclusive establishment
but on closer scrutiny, a populist
one, and hugely popular judging
from the hordes of humanity
entering and exiting singly and
in pairs, assembling in groups
or in contemplative solitude
awaiting service. This place beckons
and attracts an infirm populace
suffering from the chronic ailment
of old age. They arrive in wheelchairs
or pushing walking aids, or leaning
upon one another; grey haired and
frail, elderly and uncertain, thin
and obese, searching the means
to extend their superannuated 
lives. They come to be healed, or
their aches and pains, their dire
conditions ameliorated however
temporarily. They are treated,
comforted, bedded and fed. They
cringe and they whinge and
ultimately join their predecessors.

Overnight

The humped ghosts
of yesterday
peer through the
dim gloom
of night
edging into day
snow falling
thick as a lover's promises
an incandescent halo
glimmering from
light standards
a refraction
stippling
the snow
reflecting the
barely-limned moon
moving serenely
through overcast
as deep
as a rejected lover's
thoughts.

 

Unbiased, Naturally

How much more cleverly adaptive
are humans than other animals,
say dogs, for example? How much
more instinctively able to negotiate
their environment, socialize
seek out challenges of adventure
and physical prowess, enjoy life
make friends for a lifetime
become altruistic, learn discipline
and self-sacrifice? In all sincerity
and without risking credulity
it's close to a draw, with dogs
given the slight edge in patience
consideration and forgiveness.

Wish You Weren't There

Just another reminder that things
are not always as they may on the
surface appear to be, for life is
usually more complicated than simple
and just because your neighbours
chose to escape two weeks of winter
and you resented the very thought of
sun and sandy beaches, you might have
been better off appreciating winter
at home. You didn't have to cope with
the frustration of cramped limbs on
a packed flight and too little room
for comfort. Nor did the tour bus
you took on Hawaii gladden you but
madden  you with its malfunctioning
toilet so your wife refused to hydrate
adequately and the result was
heatstroke and a hospital visit, not
on the anticipated itinerary. Wait
a minute, that's not all, her condition
turned to pneumonia. And did I mention
days on end of rain frustrating planned
outings? Consider them all now
mentioned. Oh, and the gratitude
your neighbours felt, to return to
the very winter scene they'd fled....

The Anguish of Loss

It's a small dog, a Pomeranian
mix they've doted on as a
rescue for many years. A sudden
turn in health has brought them out
with her on this Sunday to the city's
emergency veterinary hospital. As
small and unkempt as the dog appears
the elderly couple, themselves large
in fact morbidly obese, are gripped
for its welfare as they wait among
the other elderly devoted pet owners
for release from concern's tension.
She moves ponderously, slowly
post-stroke she explains, but her
voice is robust with tales of the
little dog's exploits. Tension is high
but so is goodwill for there is
beauty in such devotion and smiles
to spare. As each name is called
the waiting room absorbs the
presence of others. When those
called emerge, gratitude is effusively
expressed when all is well, pets'
problems resolved. All but one,
as the shuffling woman and her
husband exit, no Pom with them,
her face crumpled in profound grief that 
her own medical condition never merited
their final farewell to a well loved
companion devastatingly unexpected.

 

A Global Pandemic

Though global health authorities
pay no attention, the fever
gripping the world community
does qualify as a global pandemic.
It has, moreover, ancient credentials
this fever that overtakes normally
sensible and healthy people
who in the grip of its intense
unsettling power become suddenly
addled with manic compulsion
as they rake lawns, wash vehicles
clean windows, ream out kitchen
cupboards, wash draperies and
generally behave as though
demented. A malady, alas, for
which there is no cure, but a
remedy that echoes: repeat annually.

Mother of the Groom

Under the illusion after fifty
years of marriage that you have
the key to his heart securely
tucked into your superior
cooking skills, you just may be right.
But take heed, wife of a mother's
son that she was there first
comforting the stomach of the
boy who would some day be
your husband. So sigh if you must
when he now and again waxes 
nostalgic over his long-gone mother's 
culinary skills in memory of his 
mother's boy recalling the warmth 
and aroma of her care and devotion,
satisfying that primal need
that you too respond to, and think
now of your own sons, do.

 

Portrait of the Artist

He imagines himself to be
speaking with the sharp edge
of knowledgeable authority
as he confidently and earnestly
plies the museum visitors with
the background he has so
assiduously gleaned from avid
perusal of the literature and fame
extolling the authentic vision of
the artist whose paintings and
sculptures chronicled the
American opening of the
Western frontier, coping with
all the raw and lethal challenges
inherent in wresting a land
from its original inhabitants
zealously defending their place
in time and history, becoming a
legend in the process, even in
inglorious bloody defeat. There
is little neutrality in the art
portraying those massively
destructive clashes of
'primitivism' and civilization
the natural world and the
constructed, decidedly unnatural
one, but the skill in portrayal is
what commends the art to us now,
not the moral judgement that
gags one's viscera, and we most
politely accede to the docent's
portrait of the artist revealed.

The Living Photograph

The wind blows stridently
off the wide St. Lawrence River
and high-flying gulls call plaintively
though in their perfect element.
Only a short while earlier a
harsh winter had frozen deeply
into the river, snow mounding the
icy surface. The sky wider and bluer
is somehow reflected in the cold
crystal clear river, colouring its
near shore depths not blue but
strangely the palest palette of green
lapping at the shoreline. Across
the river, another shoreline, 
another country and there
human habitation to match its
opposite shore. The haunting blast
of a freight train travels across
the distance, the train trundling
the landscape distance-miniaturized.

Clan Hate Culture

The corrosive venom of hatred
worms its way into a
hardened heart and destroys
the soul, consuming empathy
and compassion, tolerance and
forgiveness in equal measure
in its vitriolic passage within
the viscera by its pathological 
intensity. Within that tight little
rural town both families had their
ardent sympathizers and the
incident, though a half-century old
festered. Until the boy who was
two when his sister at nine
perished in an accident, at fifty-two
took a firearm to finally visit
the son and grandson of the 
dead man who drove his truck
fifty years ago through a hidden
intersection. Now, the daughter 
of the grandson professes to a
deep and abiding loathing of the
man sentenced to life in prison
that consumes her inner core 
to a fierce fire of execration
that will never subside until she
too has exacted her due vengeance.

Gently Admonishing

No, she winked; this time she 
really, truly means to bring
bashful Spring to the farewell
party she has arranged as a 
sendoff for another year to
the Old Grump who always 
balks at exiting. She has arranged
for a chorus of robins and 
song sparrows to voice an
exaltation of glory for departing
Winter, and exhorted tulips and
narcissus to emerge in bright
living textured colour in 
celebration of the event. None
are to mention their misery
at the lingering frost in the soil
they must penetrate, the
plaintively heartbreaking misery
of returning songbirds searching
scarce forage, and the broadest
hint of all, the presence of
Mourning Cloaks shifting their
grey shadows flittingly through
still-winterbound forests whose 
unease awaiting release from cold's 
miserable bondage is to be kept
carefully under wraps so as not
to offend Winter and convince him
his time to depart has not yet come.

The Taciturn Season

As a tactician of matchless
skills Nature has no peer
though pretenders proliferate.
She has delivered yet another
temporary tease, while
withholding complete ushering
in of spring, as though deigning
in her magisterial manner to
to respond to pathetic plaints 
that we suffer unbearable misery 
in the lingering presence of
winter snarling its defiance
of the season's imperative that
he exit along with his minions
wind, icy temperatures, snow.
That tease, while posing as a 
sincere apology for our cold 
discomfort arrives in the guise 
of a balmy breeze shifting mild air 
and spring-reborn sunrays to melt
the snowpack before another
'unseasonal' snow event presents.

 

Agonizing When

Yes, of course we agonize like this
every spring, wondering when winter 
will ever leave, and why spring is so 
ambivalently tardy. Glimpses of the past 
that our memory willingly serves up 
if we really press the matter recall 
other spring-time arrivals when we 
felt equally hard-put-upon by a crankily 
spent winter refusing to recognize 
its best-before date, and a timid spring
that cannot recall when its arrival date 
was meant to be surface. Surely, we 
convince ourselves, this year is much, 
much worse as it seems as though 
the cold will never relent, the snow 
will never melt, harsh winds blow
and as we concern ourselves over 
the welfare of returning birds and 
the lack of accessibility to green shoots
insects and anything else that migrants 
will seek to sustain themselves with
exhausted after their long flights
nature appears blithely unperturbed.

Entering Spring

Winter's lingering chill in the 
evening hours clarifies the moon's
full face as it and the stars illuminate
the dank dessication of forlorn gardens
buried under lingering mounds of
snow and ice, while above a
succession of northward returning
geese fly an elegant tracery
against the dark sky, calling
their presence in migrating triumph.
In the morning the garden glistens
with the teardrops of overnight rain
and a robin's song peals its
greeting to sleeping earthworms
even as tulips and hyacinths, 
daffodils and crocuses excitedly
send their shoots out of still-frozen
earth. In the afternoon, the sun
parts the curtain of clouds, warming
the awakening gardens and a cardinal
trills its fervent welcome to spring.

Campaigning for Peace

The religion of peace has
spawned its death brigades
in honour of the god who
commands a universality of
global surrender to the holy
spirit's compassionate dedication
to the welfare of humankind.
The holy scriptures circumscribe
the means and imposes upon
its faithful hordes their sacred
obligation to colour the
civilized world in the blood
of violent conquest. Witness
the verbal gymnastics as
Western targets view the
Islamist jihadi atrocities
denying the terrorists could
possibly represent Islam, for
their victims are also Muslims
practising their faith in the
misbegotten belief of the
sacredness of all human life.
It is a contortionist's challenge
to avoid charges of inciting
suspicion of Islam even while
its ardent followers burn, sack,
destroy, rape, enslave, torture
and delight in mass murder to
convince the skeptical world
their only mission is peace.

The Enduring Condition

Never can fault the news
for being a bore. It's those endless
human interest stories that tend
to arrest the reading public's
attention. Violence against women
is one of those topical points of 
public interest, from the issues of
trafficking teens and women of
foreign derivation, to child marriages,
infibulation, rampant sexism,
predation and rapes, honour killing
and women put out of the misery
of life by the boyfriends and
husbands who care so deeply for
their well-being that murder seems
the only option. With age, we are
told, comes wisdom accompanied
by the philosophy of eased emotions
and a relaxation of tensions. Sad an
interview with the 100-year-old man
who bludgeoned his wife to death
is not possible, since he then
knifed himself quite successfully,
leaving the reader more than a 
trifle puzzled that yet another
supposition has withered in the
reality of the human condition.


Elmwood Park, N.J.
Prosecutors say a 100-year-old man
apparently killed his 88-yr old wife
with an axe as she slept in their northern
New Jersey home, then killed himself in
the bathroom with a knife. A motive 
for the attack remains under
investigation.

 

The St.Lawrence

It is a mighty seaway
where maritime fleets
and the commerce of
international trade ply
its watery depths. This
early spring day however,
is dark with hovering clouds
bruising the sky, yet light
with endless flakes
of drifting snow
an ice fog settling over
the grey water shielding
its presence from view
only the appearance of an
interminable steel bridge
humping the distance
of two nations revealing
to the mind's eye
what lies beneath.

The Wagging Tongue

When I was a girl, a lifetime
ago, I never dreamed of a
tall handsome stranger
entering my life to sweep me
off my metaphorical feet. But I
did manage to sweep a boy my
age who more than fulfilled
the promise of my feverish
dreams, off his feet. Now that
we're old, that mysterious
stranger has finally appeared
to challenge for his place in
my esteem by his amorous
advances. My husband doesn't 
really mind since my new suitor
while dark and handsome, is
also the merest runt of a dog.

 

The Lap Dog

Isn't it fair to wonder what
pampered little dogs think of
the humans who coo over them
in their cosmetic fixation on
transforming a small animal into 
a plaything, a vicarious child,
an adorably absurd creature
of their imagining as removed
from what nature intended as
the wistful sighting of unicorns
with focus on sires and dams,
breeding and bloodlines
pedigrees and coiffures
transforming an animal into
a strange chimera. The cossetted
pet wisely refrains from baring
teeth and claws, sighs in relief
at the cognitive frailty of a
lesser creature, steering the
conversation to covert domination.

The House of Reproach

The House of Reproach

Suddenly it has become a dark and dismal place. A place that tugs at memories, both fresh and old. A place of rebuke. Where is he? You have left him somewhere, abandoned him. This is a place that was shared. It cannot conceive itself with only you . You understand that the house is in mourning, but you also know that you cannot comfort the house. You are yourself beyond thinking or feeling of anything. Your loss is a huge abyss, and your grief inconsolable. So how can you possibly comfort the bereft house?

It will have to manage on its own.

But it hugely resents your lack of concern over its well-being. It refuses to offer you haven. As it should. As it is expected to do. It is, after all, the serene and private place that you both conceived of, worked to achieve and then revelled in. Your place of refuge and comfort, happily shared, and the world firmly shut out.

You could try informing the house that this is all a dreadful mistake. This is a nightmare from which you, and it, will both eventually awake. This nightmare will leave with the ghoulish pain of having imagined something impossible-yet-possible which you, and it will do your best to store in the deep chasm of fearful anticipation, of an event that has not yet occurred. It cannot have. Death simply cannot have so suddenly decided to make its dread visit.

There had been no calling card, no premonition, not the merest, slightest whiff of possibility.

Death, she knew, had a deserved reputation of resolute implacability, but she was also aware that there were those who managed to evade those grasping, bony fingers, to elude their determination to squeeze the unwilling soul from the unready body.

People had, after undergoing those frighteningly mystical experiences, described them. He would have defied Death. He would have informed Death that he had no intention whatever of departing. Of fleeing from her. Of deserting her. For he very well knew he must not. His powers of persuasion would have prevailed. Death would have exacted some measure of penalty, but she knew he would have prevailed.

That being so, it was impossible, not merely inconceivable, but absolutely impossible that he was gone. This was a sinister prank that some higher order was playing on her and she did not appreciate it.

Who could she call for comfort? Not her children, they were scattered all over the globe. Her children. Not quite biological offspring that most people count upon for solace. Her children were alive and well - or not alive and not at all well, but part of biographical families that she had created. They lived in the literature that she had created through her fervid and fearsome imagination. They were published works of living art. Which had been translated into more languages than she could recall. Copies of those books had been distributed world-wide. She was an author of world renown.

A friendless, nonetheless, famous author. Her friends and her family inhabited her books, and her thoughts and resulted from her need to fill in all those frustratingly awkward blank spaces.

The house emitted a bellicose roar, interrupting her thoughts. It wanted to know, have her tell it, why she had arrived back home alone. She had left earlier for the distinct purpose of bringing her husband’s notes and portfolios - the ones he had carefully instructed her to look for at his university office - back home. So they might be there, at his home study, awaiting his return. He was to be discharged in the morning. The hospital's ministrations to his sudden bout of pneumonia successfully concluded. He was scheduled to leave, released from the hospital. To her care.

Whose else? They were all to one another, there was no one else. He was the sun about which she revolved. But when she’d arrived at the hospital the front doors were locked.

En route to the university to retrieve his notebooks and the very specific portfolios that this professor emeritus had been working with, she’d received a call. From someone at the hospital. Name? Well, she could not recall. Did it matter? The voice, urgent, informing her to come to the hospital as soon as she humanly could.

But the doors were closed, they were locked and she was denied entry. She knocked frantically. Even after hours there should be someone in the lobby, but there seemed to be no one. She ran around the perimeter of the building, trying to find alternate entrances. At one she found a custodian, smoking outside the entry and asked if he could allow her in.

“Nope”, his unconcerned response. And then she explained, she had to see her husband, it was urgent, her presence was required. And the man’s face creased with uncertainty, then he leaned over and opened the door wide for her entry.

Where to go?

“Upstairs, Ma’am, you’ll see the firedoor, just push it and you’ll find yourself on the main floor.”

And then, not that long after, the nurse looking at her, looking at her, looking at her. “No one with you?”, she asked as though she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

“No one.”

“Got anyone you can call?”

“Not really”

“Well, look, you should go home. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

Go home? There’s no one at home. He’s here. Here’s where she should stay. With him.

“You’ll come back in the morning”, the night nurse said. “Your husband’s body won’t be moved. It’ll be prepared for when the funeral home comes to pick it up.”

It? What it is that? Ralph has become an it? What on Earth is it this woman is saying?

“You do have a funeral home to call, don’t you?”

Funeral home? “No", she stumbled, "no I don’t have one. Can you recommend one?”

“I don’t know“, the nurse said morosely. “You can look in the Yellow Pages. They’re all in there. Go home, you look exhausted. Get some rest. Call a funeral home in the morning. Make your arrangements in the morning. You sure you don’t have anyone who can give you a hand?”

“No. No, no one.”

This duty nurse who appeared to be the only one around had allowed her to remain beside him in the isolated room. It was the hospital’s policy to allow this. As though special dispensation was required to permit a wife of 47 years to sit beside her dead husband’s hospital bed, quietly contemplating the years that had gone by, the bleakness of the future that stretched ahead without his presence.

No, no doctors were available, she had said. All gone for the day. It was late, they needed a break. They had done their best. It was totally unexpected. No one ever imagined…

Yet, if it was, as she quietly described, a deadly bacteria, a hospital-borne infection, how could they not be aware of the potential, and have an ameliorative protocol at hand? This is the 21st Century, medical science has advanced to an amazing degree. A bacterial infection so morbidly certain of itself that there was no prescriptive challenge to its pact with death?

A half-century of intimate companionship, her shield from the world, her protector, her lover, her friend, gone. Half-century; that’s quite the time-span. If you say 47 years together, that’s considerable, it’s long enough to elicit respect and amazement, that two people could find such comfort and companionship, along with the ardour of early-years’ physical magnetism in one another. The infinite details, the ineluctable joy and pleasure - just memories.

Were they real, did they really happen, or was this the instinct of a writer, making up her life as time progressed?

Gone, everything gone, now. She had no interest in dredging up memories. Without him they were worthless. Without him to recall with her and assess the magnitude of their profound influence on her state of mind, they meant nothing. She was unable to distinguish between what she imagined to be reality and what truth actually represented. Did it matter? Yes, it did, to her.

Her bulwark against the hostile world had vanished. Had been vanquished by Death. She would not, could not believe that he had allowed that to happen. She meant him, not some fantasy of a human construct of an omniscient spirit benignly and alternately viciously, looking down over its creation.

She did leave the hospital. Left him lying there on that bed, still inexplicably hooked up with those electrodes all over his chest under that dishevelled gown. The mask that had covered his face had been hurriedly removed, left lying beside him. His face, so strangely grey, with deeper creases alongside his cheeks than could be considered normal for him. His hair tousled. That would bother him, He is an immaculate man.

Why was he left like that? It was an affront to his dignity.

And the remorseless pain and anguish that rose within her chest threatened to burst it asunder. The very notion of something like that happening to her was soothing, however, it would solve many problems.

Through her grief she reached over and began methodically detaching the electrodes, pulling the sticky roundels off his naked chest, then re-arranging the gown. He would be cold if she didn’t adequately cover him with that thin hospital blanket. He would catch his death of a cold…

Those slovens in their offensively cartooned scrubs seem to have laid aside their professionalism and compassion along with the traditional white scrubs.

Finally, back at home, palpably aware of the simmering resentment of the house, brooding at the prospect of hosting only her, she reasoned to herself that she must leave. This reproachful house which was their treasured home no longer exuded the care and comfort that their conceit had conceived of it.

She would leave. She would leave it to its own devices, to make another life for itself with other occupants who would not know nor care of its history.

And then reason gave her pause. What if he decided to return? Where would he look for her? Did she not have an obligation to maintain everything that he valued intact? His books, his clothing, his writing tools? Above all, his research papers, completed, not yet completed, published, unpublished. Yes, that was true, he would need them all.

And her. He most certainly needed her to be there. To welcome him back home. To throw her arms around him, and feel the quickness of his breath, the electricity passing between them, his beating heart.

She would stay, wait things out, this temporary aberration in their lives together. This … inexplicable interregnum.

Her first instinct, the knowledge that he would never abandon her had been the right one. He would find a way to return. And she would be there, in the place he was most familiar with, waiting for him.

She could feel the house relax its tension.

 

This Night

Could this night be any
more perfectly redolent
of promise? Its deep blue
velvet hue a perfect backdrop
for winking Venus, the full
glorious face of the moon,
a breeze moving the
ineffable fragrance of spring
in the cool air, snow 
melting underfoot and
the haunting call of geese
flying on their northward
trajectory thrilling the 
very marrow of our
frozen Canadian bones.