On This Winter Day

When a wide blue sky towers over
a winter day extreme cold prevails
irrespective of the beaming sun's
filtered fingers illuminating the forest
canopy finding its way through the
network of naked branches to glance
piercingly off snow packed on the
forest floor, as opposed to the relative
mildness that prevails on a pewter sky 
day, shielding the sun. On this day
the sun shone, casting long shadows
in mid-afternoon. On such days even
a slight breeze lifts and turns paper-thin
foliage stubbornly clinging on those
immature oak, beech and hornbeam
standing their place among the fir,
pine and hemlock in this woodland
where days of snow events were
punctuated with freezing rain, tamping
down the snowpack to a hard crust.
Down in the valley of the forested
ravine migration-averse robins alight
by the steadily streaming creek in
their search for food, and somewhere
above, chatter chickadees and a lone
nuthatch, birds of the boreal forest.

It Was a Very ? Year

The year I was born my parents greeted
their first-born child, with three more
to follow at substantial intervals, all
to an immigrant family living in pride and
poverty, escapees from racial bigotry,
social and institutional violence seeing
no possible future for themselves where
they were born. It was, coincidentally the
year that Nazi Germany denied the 
League of Nation having any business
interfering in the way it treated Jews. In
that year of 1936 Britain's King George
died, making way for the ascension of
Edward VIII; Hitler opened the 4th
Winter Olympics; 4 million French workers
went on strike; racists almost beat Leon Blum
to death; the Hindenburg had its first test
flight; Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles;
Jews were warned of arrest should they
attempt to vote; Italy, Austria and Hungary
signed the pact of Rome; Britain, the U.S.
and France signed a naval accord; Italy
firebombed Harar, Ethiopia; Arab
highwaymen near Nablus killed three Jews;
Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa;
General Francisco Franco began the
Spanish civil war; The "Nazi Games" of
the 11th Olympic games opened in Berlin;
Benito Mussolini celebrated his "axis"
with Nazi Germany; A British Royal 
Commission investigated the underlying 
cause of anti-Jewish riots which the Arab 
Higher Committee boycotted; Japan and
Nazi Germany signed the Anti-Komintern 
pact; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, 
Kazakhstan and Kirghistan joined the USSR;
Edward VIII abdicated for Wallis Warfield 
Simpson; and humble me was born.

Hallelujah Chorus 

Who might have imagined that this
was even achievable? Finally, I have
risen to the distinction of status, really I
have! Like a personage of royal descent
I have a distinctive aristocratic retinue
that dogs my every footstep, slavishly
currying my favour, unctuously declaring
their devotion lest I overlook their
devoutly dedicated presence. In the interests
of full disclosure I must admit I am
without title. On the other hand, my
admirers are entitled to be viewed as
representatives of the highest order of
their breed, duly registered as such
though their humility in the fact of
that distinction does them due credit.
Their reliance on my good graces simply
reflects their recognition that this
human they have generously deigned to
adopt represents the fount of all they consume
with rapacious gusto guiding them to
aim their regal steps in the wake of my
own plebeian strides into their very most
favourite chamber of the palace we
graciously share where food is prepared.

Christmas Day

Defying the sound-smothering effect of 
newfallen snow on the atmosphere
they could, nonetheless, be heard long
before coming into range, a shrill
orchestration of fun-anticipating voices
giddy with the monumental arrival of 
the day so long anticipated though it 
has been hours since opening Christmas 
gifts under a glittering tree. Here, in the 
forest, a different type of glitter entirely 
awaited their dazzled eyes. Led by a small
furry dog, ears flapping, tail a metronome
its own voice lifted as a contrapuntal chorus
in shrieking excitement at the shared
adventure, they advance on the tramped
trail thickly wadded with snow, afternoon 
sun sparkling on the snow padded tree 
branches, mild enough that a steady drip 
of melt anoints their toqued heads. They 
chatter brimming with energy, hauling sleds 
down the long snow-slick hill into the 
ravine where in encounters with succeeding 
hills they will imagine themselves to be
defying gravity, these children of winter
graduated in age and size all bubbling with 
laughter, two harried mothers stumbling 
along, bringing up the distant rear.

The Humbug in Christmas Cheer

The Humbug in                                         Christmas Cheer

The anticipation is as electrically
palpable as it is contagious, beginning
with the onset of winter weather and
people feverishly setting up their
Christmas decorations, festooning light
sets over their houses, the trees on their
property, frantically shopping and baking
in excited preparation for the cardinal
holiday of the year, a celebration of
light, and song and goodwill toward all.
As Christmas Eve nears, people amble
in urban parks and woodlands, transfixed
with nature's winter gift freshly fallen
transforming the ordinary into a white
wonderland where greeting others with
traditional shouts of !Merry Christmas!
comes readily in heartfelt affection for
life and all who inhabit this earthly sphere.
Beyond the public parks and the urban
forest there are vast multitudes of shops
and consumer emporiums for whom this
most especial holiday gifts with the
imperative of commerce hawking its
irresistible wares. And there, in packed
shopping centres and parking lots, ill
will raises its miserable head, altering
attitudes in a display of disagreeableness
a sullen wretchedness of taut facial
expressions and impatient rage as sad
societal pressures to conform to the values
of a community steeped in a culture of
acquisition sidesteps Christmas cheer.

That Child

Children can be such impudent
little treasures can't they? One never
knows what outrageous observations
will spill out of their innocent little
mouths. Take my granddaughter for
example (no you cannot, she is the
only one I have), she was an incorrigibly
stubborn child, unwilling ever to take
any level of responsibility (a trait
inherited, unfortunately, from her
mother). It is these children of one's 
own once removed that have the
capacity to give pride to a grandmother's
heart or alternately, break it. Often when
she was young I would mimic that oft-
refrained "Not my fault!" to her tiny
resentful face, puckered in defiance
until a self-recognizing laugh erupted.
This is the child who even then 
exercised a sense of moral understanding
however, one that propelled her in later
years, still young, to cultivate the
ambition to become a lawyer. Few
affectations in that child, but a full
range of affectionate teasing. Her most
endearing trait, you ask? A puckish
sense of humour. On the back of one
envelope containing a carefully cursive
written letter in grade five, she wrote a
number of notes: Stay in school be cool 
(not)!; This letter is not a toy don't put
on head; Always eat your vegetables;
Some putting together required; Some
small parts age 3 and up; and finally
still on the back of the envelope: Children
under the age of 3 should not open.
Those were the days. You ask me, as a
friend, what happened to that child? 
Ah well, she became a detached adult
and I do sorely miss that child.

 

The Anxious Woods

The landscape a monochromatic scene
under the brilliance of the winter sun
is punctuated with solemn, sullen and
dark tree trunks, resting on a white
forest floor, a dense coverlet for the
sleeping woods as resilient as time
and nature, waiting out its hibernating
hiatus before life returns and with it
the glorious shades of foliage and
woodland flowers inviting migration
absent birds to return and wildlife to
emerge from their refuge from branch-
cracking damp and cold and relentless
wind. This is the day of the Winter Solstice
when hours of the day are shortest and 
night endless; when light cast by the sun 
is relentlessly telescoped into cramped
hours reflecting Cosmic revolutions
in the evolution of space and time
impacting our celestial sphere. The
landscape is silent, serene though
chafing at the interruption of life's
ineffable rhythm, awaiting awakening.

The Test

Sternum pried apart, body medically cooled
as surgery proceeded -- that happened.
Scarcely three months later, the challenge
was threefold; the atmosphere raw and
damp, wind knifing through minus-six
degrees Celsius; ankle-deep snow with
a succession of long ascents and
matching descents; and whether enough
time had passed to advance the healing
process to enable a return to old habits
of daily rambles through an urban
forest thick with snow-laden conifers
and foliage-deprived deciduous trees
along familiar trails never before
difficult to negotiate. Your two little
dogs beside themselves with joyful
abandon to return in your company
to a beloved landscape, racing ahead 
greeting other dogs leading hikers you 
well know, who stop, incredulous at 
your appearance to exclaim, draw near
and warmly hug taking care not to press 
your chest. Initial trepidation soon departed 
as you forged on to complete a familiar 
circuit not in record time but in a timely 
manner for a man of 80 whose life had so
latterly been upended, returning to normal.


 

 

The Who vs The What

It is a dilemma and it must be faced.
One is a who the other a sublime
mechanism whereby one can be
transported outside oneself. Both are
valued, the who as a warm and living
organism complementing our lives
while the what is a devoted byproduct
of humanity's capacity to communicate.
Put the two together and the dilemma
surfaces. A mischievous little dog
who believes it is perfectly normal to
peruse the bindings of books not to
find fascinating promise within their
pages, but to gnaw that binding as an
irresistible draw. To separate the who
and the what is not a simple undertaking.
Books abound in this household and are
everywhere to be found, many at a level
approachable by an enterprising dog. 
And that small dog is also everywhere
in the house that values the presence of
reading material. It is not a question
actually of what holds greater appeal
and value to those who respond to the
endearing qualities of a small furry
creature living among them, as opposed
to the printed word and the elegant grace
of language. So which to favour and
how to balance the scale of devotion
requires rational debate beyond the
discipline required of a puzzled little
dog for whom love cannot be withheld.

A Library of Thought

It is so pleasurable, the exhilarating
glow we two share, yours well-earned
and mine reactive in response to your
gift to me, a book whose heft in my
hand exudes a promise of the exotic
meandering my way, the elegant prose
taking me to another world which I can
share with you as you do with me when
our reading takes us on diverse paths
whose revelations tease us to invite the
other to disclose newly-engaged interests.
What other gift could conceivably match
that of a book with its inherent air of
mystery and discovery, the opportunity
to read unmatched passages scripted by
those driven to share what they know
what they've seen, what they have
searched for and found to elevate their
souls, and in turn ours. What other gift
has the capacity to whisper to us of
worlds scarcely imagined yet offered 
in an irresistible volume giving of itself, 
the promise of reward delivered through 
a library of thought and substance.

Savagery Reigns

How idiosyncratic is the human animal.
There is among us higher primates
those whose pure goodness and
inherent decency acts as a balm to the
wretched misery imposed by the race's
psychopaths caring nothing for the
pain and suffering their actions cause
to others. And among that species is a
sub-species whose glaring impacts on
the human weal destructively ferocious
in its impact to achieve an end fostering 
power and command on behalf of tyrannies
resulting in populations reeling in pallid
self-defense for which there is no solace
to the massive onslaughts perpetrated
by their tormentors reflect a world where
the powerless may be persecuted without
end. Where foreign powers look on
with dismay insufficient to mount aid
rescuing the unfortunate from the doom 
blackening their horizon and robbing
their futures. From Hitler to Stalin 
Mao to Pol Pot, Saddam to Assad whose
hatred aligned with their pernicious 
egotistical hubris and misanthropy for
whom bloodshed was merely a means to
their desired end mounted upon the legions
of defenceless whom they exterminated
the world of humanity deplored and wept
seeing fit to surrender to apathy restraining
any efforts, however pitiful, to intervene.

In Perpetual Symbiosis

The ineffable silken threads that bind
us, you and me, my dear, represent
life's declaration that binary symbiosis
rises on those rarefied occasions when
nature has guided two of her specimens
to discover, to recognize, to bind their
fates together in a subconscious yet
deliberate ceremony of intimacy and
biological harmony where one exists
at the pleasure of the other. Can we
possibly know one another on a deeper
level than the years together have
resulted in? You, my dear, are the sun
that shines on my very being, you are 
the sum total of all that gives value to 
my existence. When my eyes sight you 
my heart and soul respond leaping toward
a higher plane of consciousness. Living
alongside you, my flesh thrills to the
touch of yours, my eyes probe the depth
of yours inviting me to delve as deep as
I wish to meld my soul with yours in
perpetuity. The contract we signed with
our minds to love one another 'till death
do us part, seemed a rote formula, but as
age overtakes us it is now no idle thought
but a raw acknowledgement of our
mortality, though love like ours is, in full
plain reality, my dear, clearly immortal.

 

Dysfunction or Normalcy?

We remember believing, in pained
desperation that once infancy is
over and the passage to adolescence
has been completed, there will be
ample time for reasonable debate
with that middle child so different
from her siblings. And when that time
never did quite arrive, we consoled 
ourselves with the assurance that 
emerging adulthood would change 
everything to enable us to speak with 
equanimity to the child presenting 
with authority opposition in the 
assurance that maturity would render 
unto us the opportunity to rationally
discuss matters so that the ongoing
current reeking with mistrust, blame and 
resentment would dissipate in a sea
of emotional outpourings far more
consonant with familial love than
the constant friction that always seemed
to raise its uneasy equilibrium between
strained silence and ebullient casual
chatter, hostility lingering on the margins. 
This too shall pass, we consoled
ourselves. Somehow it never managed
to. And when we meet by happenstance
other women who casually drop bits
of intimate confessions, eager to 
develop a conversation where the
confused pain of motherhood can be
opened for discussion, we realize that
this is no exceptional misfortune that 
has befallen us in raising our children
but that many, like ourselves have 
experienced similar failings in the
expectation that some fabled familial
harmony reflecting harmonious relations
and devoted love would mark our days.

The Urban Woods

The snow-muffled ambiance of
the urban woods suddenly sprung
whoops and laughter disrupting the
earlier silence that distinguished the
atmosphere, muted by its newfallen
comforter. Two middle-aged women
who doubtless informed their children
arrived home from school not to neglect
their homework and mom was taking
the family dog out for a walk, were
carefully zig-zagging for booted
purchase downhill on the snow that 
they had determined though fluffy
was also slippery and it wasn't quite
the loss of dignity they were guarding 
against in this venue where none others
were present to observe a sliding fall
but possible physical harm that balance
and bones at their age would be quite
susceptible to. Despite that concern
they were fully engaged in imagining
themselves carefree children again
their accompanying canine without
doubt puzzled at such unhuman-like
antics generally reserved for those of
its breed. Confronted suddenly by the
sight of an elderly woman walking two
little dogs, confusion set in as the two
nonplussed women passed a pleasantry
then watched as the silver-haired one
trudged nonchalantly uphill, footsure
and energetic, her puppies in tow.

Sisters, Daughters

Like the exquisitely fragile
appearing strands of a spider's
web with their tensile strength
meant to capture and to hold,
a sister who has shared your
childhood absorbs an intimate
understanding of your emotions
and moods and only she is able
to plumb the full depth of your
despair offering insight and
comfort. Like the tide ebbing
and flowing only a daughter
is capable of delicately playing
with her mother's strengths and
weaknesses, probing and 
exploring while taking note of
reactions to her skilled and
none-too-loving manipulation.
The sister, with her own trials
to gird her against the confusion
that invariably ensues with
disbelief that one so loved could
return spite and venom, sighs in
patient resignation, extending
her love to fill the vacuum another 
has so balefully surrendered.

Message, ergo Medium

The dictatorial mind is unfathomable
to the ordinary mind which cannot
quite fathom how it is that anyone
might have been given such implacably
extraordinary powers over others in
the supreme knowledge that in the
imperturbable mind residing in the
skull of the tyrant, he can do nothing
wrong, for he is infallible. Conscience
is a dire failing, a stumble-stone upon
which lesser mortals fall, but not he.
His word is final, his action beyond
the morals that mere mortals are
hindered by, but not he. His supreme
indifference to the harm that others
suffer through his odious decrees and the
actions that follow are simply trifles
not to be dwelt upon, the price to be
paid by others subservient to the great
cause that he represents: his maintenance
of power through repression, threat and
fear. And when that fails to address ugly
uprisings, why there is always mass
slaughter to hammer the message home.

Dark Silent Woods

There's a brooding, sullen air
in the forest, the air heavy with
early dusk, shadows deep dark grey,
trees standing stark against the sky
roiled with dark clouds, an urgent
wind rustling stubborn oak leaves
refusing to fall upon the blanket that
squalls of thick-fallen snow left on
the forest floor. No birds sing in the
silent woods. Only the crunch of
boots on a trail where the light is
failing; the creek within the fold
of the ravine ripples on its frigid
journey to the great rivers beyond
the margins of the winter-sleeping
forest. Above the dark sentinels of
trunks reaching to the heavens a
sliver of moon appears, dim yet 
but well defined, hanging low and
luminously silver, its light not yet
able to define the landscape below.

My Fond Heart

The pretensions of the sages offering
the philosophical meanderings of their
wisdom like prophets of old can be
tediously troublesome, fodder for the
credulous who believe whatever they hear
or read, but an assault on the sensibilities
of those capable of measuring their own
emotions, sufficiently so to know that
the tired old adage that Absence Makes
The Heart Grow Fonder is an abstract
reflecting a mind that has never truly loved.
For when you, my love, are absent from my
sight, my touch, my hearing for however
long, my heart throbs with anguish
wondering when you will return to me
so I can observe you, feel you, speak
with you, enjoy every aspect of life
together that our existence offers those as
fortunate as we. An absence of your close
presence is a torment of concern until
you return and my mind is set to rest. 

The Snowbound Woods

The silvered clouds that loosed a
hurricane of snow the day before
have vacated the sky, leaving that
heavenly venue a blue ocean where
the sun floats calmly with no challenges
to its primal presence, warming the
atmosphere and steadily melting the
frozen crystals comforting the frozen
landscape below. The forest canopy
rises stark and dark into the light
blue of the sky. Below, on boughs
of spruce, fir and pine snow yet
lingers, reluctant to surrender to the
warming fingers of sunfire seeping
through the leafless tree spires. But
the steady drip of snowmelt adds
its audible texture to the silence of
the snowbound woods as the sun's
relentless dominion dominates
the atmosphere and the nature of
environmental succession, bit by bit.

 

Flying High

Nonchalantly bypassing the immutable
bonds of nature keeping its creatures
solidly earthbound the long-legged dog
in an excess of exuberance imagining
himself an eagle, soars into the air,
featherlight, ears streaming behind his
small black muzzle, up, up and away as
though the laws of gravity are there to be
challenged. He leaps like a gazelle
and races like a cheetah, this little
chimera whose sister vainly attempts
to match his grace and nimbleness to
little avail. Both enraptured by their
cold, white environment glittering
under the early winter sun, inciting
them to celebrate their freedom to race
about, to nuzzle the soft-cushioned
forest floor in their celebration of life
as they cavort endlessly, feats of acrobatic
flight and fancy maneuvering them in
a swiftly moving tracery of black hair
flying in the wind, urging wisping curtains 
of snow from overhead boughs to drape 
these fleeting figures of canine bliss.

 

The Snow Faerie

That it was an enchantingly beautiful
day was beyond dispute, there was
a whiff of magic in the atmosphere,
frigid with a whisper of wind, a white
forest and above its canopy the winter
sun was melting the burden of snow
on the trees, dripping below, even as
the snow-covered boughs glittered
with the diamond-edge sharpness of
precious jewels, shafts of sunlight
glancing off snowflakes reflecting
rainbow colours of dancing light. And
then, there she was, a vision of lovely
freshness, but no apparition though
she did resemble an angelic presence
in the pristine cathedral that the forest
reflected. Dark blond ringlets tumbling
around her perfectly proportioned young
face, her smile radiant as she approached
and we talked, pleasantly and as though
we were familiar with one another. It
was only later that I regretted not
telling her how priceless her appearance
was in that atmosphere at that time.

 

Seasonal Wildfires

They arrive in over-heated combustion
when circumstances are just so; tinder-dry
forests, scarcity of rainfall, vigorous
hot winds and malevolence also plays
a role when aspiring pyromaniacs
lust to view the thrill of devouring flames
consume all in their way, from inanimate
to animate, animals madly dashing to
hoped-for-safety and forests withering
from life to blackened death. Towns and
villages, urban and suburban homes and
civic buildings erupt in flames even as
firefighters risk their lives in a comradeship
of death-defying covenants, placing them
within the belly of the beast to outwit
and out-manoeuvre the fire's tempestuous
madness in its all-consuming hunger to
destroy all it can humble and level and
blacken, finding its home beneath the
devastation to simmer deep within the
earth, to rest awhile awaiting other such
grand opportunities to ungratefully lay
waste to all its mistress, nature, has devised. 
But wildfires too are nature's elements of
dominion and control. She entertains herself
with fall rehearsals in the heavens above
harmlessly displaying her awesome theatricals
like an expert fire-monger teaching her servants 
immaculate procedures for maximum effect.