Human Vanity

His gait is ponderous
made so by his prodigious
size, necessitating that he
trundle from side to side
with a practised deliberation
a delicate operation in view
of his height and his girth
stomach proceeding well
before him like a marcher
in a national day parade
lofting forward in patriotic
pride his nation's flag. This
young man's flag is the
Achilles heel of his timed
lifespan. Yet he evinces the
normal human conceit of
personal pride, lavishly
anointing himself with 
perfume, its scent too
marching proudly before him.

Seen but not Heard

Looks can be deceiving
although to be sure Abigail
has no intention of posing as
anything she is not. She is the
model of a pudgy, well-behaved
child harking back to the
straitened Victorian era. Her
smile enigmatic with an
expression almost grave
as she regards the world she
has been introduced to most
latterly, to share space in this
home. She is without peer
graciously obedient and
pleasant in her demeanor. A
rarity among young children
she is sweet and biddable,
challenging absolutely nothing.

 

The Wind in the Willows

There is an element of
human nature that binds us
to music. It enthralls and it
thrills us, whether the sound
of a waterfall, a melting glacier,
the imagined harmony of
the music of the spheres of
outer space or the inherited
trill of a bird. We respond to
the sound and the rhythm of
primitive drumbeats or the
quaintness of church bells,
wind soughing through trees
or the masterwork of a 
classical composition with an
orchestra in full command
of every instrument giving
full throat to a tone poem of
musical theatre. Most of all
music comforts, soothes and
mollifies the inner beast that
nature has created, who in its
fading years listens to the
musical sounds of memory,
held in sentimental regard
for the past and sad regret
for inevitably waning years.

We Empathize

It is stated most sincerely
yet there is a note of casual
condescension in the observation
that a youngish and robust man
on the very verge of retirement
now languishing in the swiftly
arrived final stage of a viciously
inoperable cancer for which the
prognosis is understandably bleak,
led a good and fulfilling life as
a respected member of academia.
He accomplished much, enjoyed
life to its fullest, made each
opportunity work to his advantage
and then, time and good fortune
hit the ultimate roadblock. He
does not ever recall making a 
pact with Death, yet his time
has been called and the
Dread Angel beckons.

Twin Trouble

When our two tiny black dogs
accompany us in indoor 
venues ensconced in their
over-the-shoulder carry bags
they are noticed by everyone,
cooing how adorable they are.
Like parents of sweet-appearing
children who are often dreadfully
behaved, we smile with the
knowledge that our two enfants
terribles are more accustomed to
ripping about boisterously and
seeking out mischief than posing
as cute, mute little creatures
of malleable temperament. We
offer acknowledgement of
compliments to confirm wryly 
that yes, they have trained us
well. An admission that unleashes
fond memory in the dog-adoring
public of their own endearing
companionship of beloved pets
long gone, never forgotten.

Our Celebration

Basking in the glow of
pride and memory the day of
our 60th wedding anniversary,
I burbled on how special a day
it was for us to the bemused and
congratulatory audience of
fleeting acquaintances on the
mountain trail we trekked that
day, confided to those we spoke
familiarly with later, moseying
through antique shops, and
one woman said wistfully it
would have been her own 41st
anniversary had her husband 
not died of cancer twenty years
earlier leaving her a widow and
their two young daughters
fatherless. Another confidant
of brief duration asked how we 
planned to celebrate that
momentous anniversary and I
threw my arms wide to embrace
the mountain background we
had just descended from
responding this is our celebration!

 

Mountain Atmosphere

The river hurls its mountain
stream-fed passage in a frenzy
of tumbled rock, massive and
gaunt, arrogant with a new torrent
of rainfall bleeding from a darkly
bruised sky to unleash on the
landscape an overwhelming
aquarium atmosphere drenching
the forests, slashing the lakes
twisting and tumbling over
mountain rockslides, thundering
and spuming, catching shards
of light escaping the shielding
sun through the merest of cracks
in the cloud-crowded landscape.

Chiaroscuro

The mountain range has
trapped on its summits clouds
lazy with moisture, too inert
with their weight to break free
and drift on, but pierced by
the shafts of those ambitious
heights, arrogant with the
hubris of their command of
the landscape bathed in a fury
of pounding rainfall. From the
valleys rise plumes of mist,
opaque and ephemeral. Shifting
grey haze of mist reaches
from the lowering ceiling
of cloudburst volumes
clouding the atmosphere,
shielding the verdance of
the forested slopes; every vista
a landscape transformed to
bleak monotones of grey.

Happenstance

There are in anyone's life
opportunities to discover 
the best in others. Friends
can last a lifetime and
alternately a lifetime can
be spent absent friends
while transitory friends
can reveal themselves briefly
but meaningfully and
movingly within an
introduction before parting
which may consume a tiny
portion of a day. Met and
soon to be parted, but
remembered during the
brief exposure of a trip
to a place far removed from
one's ordinary life. A
fortuitous meeting that
becomes part of the lore and
legend of life's experience.

Animal Kinship

There is community in
mutually instant friendship
among those whose spirit is
attuned to kinship with animal
companions that engage us
and advance the quality of our
lives. The presence of a puppy
capable of exciting the attention
of those who otherwise have no
interest in casual exchanges.
Brief contacts of warmth and
the memory of regret and longing
incited by the presence of
unabashedly curious dogs
willing and eager to extend
their repertory and circle of
acquaintance. In such brief
but meaningful encounters
humanity discovers in itself
its capacity to care and to emote
the kindness of instinctual
harmony among companion
species. We exhibit and share
the capacity to appreciate and
celebrate our shared existence
and in the process affirm the
benefaction of better natures.

Rain, Rain

It's one of those tediously
dusk-dark days, courtesy of
petulant nature in one of her
sporadically bad tempers
moodily bleak, calling on
her elements to share her misery
in endless rain, a low ceiling
of bruised cloud hovering
stubbornly over our
drenched landscape. Too
sodden to enjoy the outside
we too stare sullenly out of
streaming windows, resentful
of the waste of an otherwise
perfectly good summer day.
Even our little dogs, pampered
by the expectation that this day
like the preceding ones will
be warm, bright and dry
the better to cavort around
the gardens, scamper and hide
when we bid them outside.
The garden, though thrives,
flowering vines speedily
sending their tendrils to coil
about supports, roses happy
enough to bloom exuberantly
iridescent pools of rain
gleaming on the foliage of
plantain lilies -- only the large
and luscious heads of peonies
splendid in colour and layered
form burdened by the weight
of the rain, hang forlornly
even while their divine fragrance
competes with the perfumed
essence of the lilacs and perkily 
cheeky lilies-of-the-valley.

The Teen Stifled

Hard to imagine that this woman
in her middle age term of life
was ever a lithe-limbed teen
observing the world and her 
future with a spark in her psyche.
That spark long since outlived
as she perambulates her awkward
gait from left to right, slowly
advancing her body ponderous
with the weight of the years. The
teen advanced time to become a
grossly proportioned parody of
her dreams. Finding escape from
the corporeal reality of excess
and stagnation of movement in
the freedom given her behind the
wheel of her SUV, a mechanically
nimble alternate in her self-imposed
bondage to stifling permanent
incapacity; surely the spirit of
the teen looks on with melancholy.

Endless Renewal

The foundation of the forest
reaching from the mountain's
widest earth bound base to its
narrowing slopes until it becomes
an alpine struggle for survival
against icy sleet and roaring
winds of winter is forever
damply penetrated. Mosses and
lichens thrive on tree trunks
like fussy ornaments. Gnarled
old yellow birch, bark unfurling
thick with lichen, long-tumbled
mountainside boulders hosting
mosses, lichens and tender new
saplings like miniature forests
mocking the original. The still,
rain-dripping forest below redolent
with nature's decay as climax heralds
finality even while endless time 
promises renewal, germination 
hastened by presiding humidity. 
In the fastness of the forest the
mock applause of an oven bird
resounds as time and creation
proceed on their endless destiny.

 

The Mountain Stream

The early morning sun yet
gathering full potency wanly
begins to light its way through
the damp cold atmosphere of
declining dawn, still stamped
with the signature of night and
the rain that distinguished it. A
robin trills its peerless praise
of sun following rain. Rocks
long tumbled, sliding the 
mountainside to rest among
great old pines, glisten their
presence, grey lichen in a
pattern rejecting the shine. The
mountain stream lashes the slope
to carve its journey in a permanent
map on the granite, reaching the
forest floor, sending its spray
high and truculently claiming
its presence in the din of its roar.

 

The Thriving Forest

The trail forges its way steadily
upward on the treed flank of
the mountain. A switchback 
takes a sharp jog across the
mountain stream, tumbled rockfalls
offering nimble footage. As the trail
winds on the ascent it offers its
path of earth-encrusted sand
and sharp gravel mocking time
dessicating rock, over a network
of interwoven tree roots where
generations of alpine hikers have
trodden. The trail swerves to
meet the stream again, then 
verges off once more, blackflies
rising like minuscule harpies
an endless source of threat from
the blueberry bushes wildly
making their presence on the
margins of the trail, alongside
mountain sorrel. A gentle rain
patters over the green canopy above.
The forest thrives in its elements.

Spring Forest

Along the exterior confines
of the forest, wildflowers bloom
their seasonal blush and
thrushes herald the sun penetrating
the early morning cloud cover
and the forest canopy to glance 
its warming rays on wild orchids
and lilies. The forest understory
is wild with bracken, moose maple
dogwood and hemlock saplings
all verdantly gleaming with 
the overnight inversion's dew.
A fiercely fluming mountain
stream sends its spray and its
drumming fury in a crescendo
of nearby sound from runoff 
down the slopes. The fragrance
of a fallen spruce permeates the
atmosphere as a Yellow Admiral
glides past a hemlock into the
welcoming green arms of a fir.


 

Connecting ...

The connection is obviously
flawed. It's a cellphone
after all, and the distance
it covers is vast. Her voice
sounds oddly strained
and I pick up the thread
of her statements with
difficulty. Bad enough I feel
guilt in the situation. We
away enjoying ourselves
and she at home in the
stultifying sameness of day
following day, nothing of
interest intervening. So
when she asks I respond
that it's cold here, with
prospects of imminent rain
to spoil opportunities and
her voice brightens telling
me what a lovely warm day
she has enjoyed. We each
in our own way relieved.

Forest Climax, Renewal

Underfoot, untold generations of
desiccated fall waste, needles, 
twigs and seasonal foliage decayed 
and enriching the forest floor,
leafmould become a soft moist
and life-enriching carpet, a nursery
to welcome the regeneration and
resurgence of new life as the forest
feeds upon itself, fungi inspired
to existence by rotting wood fibre,
bracken revisiting life on the
decay of earlier generations as
deciduous and conifers share
the nurturing bounty inciting them
to aspire to majesty in the lineage
of their species as exemplars in
reflection of nature's scheme of
birth and death, climax and renewal.

 

The Forest Fastness

The sweet trill of a Northern
thrush pierces the insistent sound
of water rushing from the
mountain summit down the slopes
to thrash and tumble, spewing
white-frothed spray over the
long-since-fallen boulders below
crowding the bed of the mountain
stream. In the forest damp with
rainfall, hemlock, spruce, oak 
and maple are flush with early
spring's growth spurt. Moose
maple, dogwood and sumac
surge into growth, glistened,
brightly moistened and trundling
to maturity. Ostrich fern luxuriantly
unfurling, violets and Ladies Slippers
glow their nuanced shades of
pink on the forest floor. Swarms
of newly-hatched Mayflies briefly
screen the air. Yellow Admirals
perform their peerless aerial
arabesques. The spring woods
are alive with the sound, colour
and boundless vigor of renewal.

 

Of Like Nature

It is an unwritten law of
humanity that those who see
value in loving nature love
other people. To be slightly
more precise those who invest
their own natures in an
exploration of the pleasures
inherent in seeking out
natural surroundings tend
to be of like mind with
similar values and centres of
pleasure and so respect and care
for one another, strangers
though they may be. This
predilection surfaces when
they meet however briefly
during an ephemeral chance
encounter in passing one
another on a wilderness trail,
a bond however transitory in
time is forged that will live
on in memory attached to an
ascent of a mountain, an
extended canoe trip and portage,
a prolonged forest hike
when mind meets mind.

 

Garden Drama

The stage is immense as
befitting the magnitude of
the drama, a screenplay like
none other, the divine work of
the Mistress of the Universe who
this dawn was sufficiently
distracted to attend to a micro
portion of her grand estate.
Ordering up her minions
to cast a net of dark clouds
to copiously inundate our
intimate landscape, soon
tiring of its unending gloom
to call on the blinding chariot
of the sun to dispel the dark
and wind to dry the landscape
so our gardens emerged in
triumphant, luxurious exaltation.

 

Nature's Covenant

Generous to a fault we have
Nature to thank for the
priceless reality of existence.
The fault lies in its finite measure
accomplished by pairing life
with time. Realizing the flaw
in her blueprint to invest
fertility and fecundity in her
creatures, sharing the divine
act of creation, it struck the
mistress of existence that all
life must pause, expire and be
reborn. So the transitory reality
of life dogged and hectored by
restless time has resulted in
the ephemerality of beauty of
will and of mind, some things
living vanishingly briefly
entrances and exits set by the
calendar year, others clinging
longer, but all ultimately
fated to fade and decline
awaiting inevitable replacement.