The Forest
There is a mysterious, arcane
other-worldly quality to the seasonal
woods, at times secretive as though
lurking behind moss-and-lichened
giants are the strange figures of
legendary woodland creatures
never seen whose presence haunts
the imagination. In the humid
atmosphere of summer, the crisp
days and nights of fall, the depths
of frozen winter, the emergence
of rebirth in spring, there is never any
lack of surprise for those who venture
there. Wild creatures abound and
occasionally their curiosity about
our presence betrays theirs. There
is sound if we still our own voices
to interpret what we hear, and
movement forever reaching from
the depths of the forest floor to
visibility, from ferns to fungi. The
swift flight of songbirds and birds
of prey alike thread through the
forest canopy. And on days of
fiercely cannon-quality winds posing
as micro bursts with the force of
brutal aggression, trees are felled
and their prolonged, agonized
crash brings with their plunge to
earth less mature trees unable to
endure the urgent call to gravity.
Kira Is Undeniable
Kira is uniquely Kira, not another
like her. Her tiny, tidy fluff-ball
presence refreshing in the vision
of a minuscule Schnauzer, the runt
of her litter improbably posing as a
grey Teddybear, pink-accented
fluffs at her feet and her muzzle.
There was a time when Kira
went nowhere without her tennis
ball, and that ball rolled nowhere
without Kira in hot pursuit. She
is no longer a puppy, not even a
grown-up puppy posing as one
that will never achieve the mentality
of adulthood. For now, sweet as she
is, she is also quiet, the high-pitched
squeals of delight at life's offerings
that always heralded her presence
have disappeared along with her
hearing. Her demeanor is composed
and dignified, her gait much slower
as she grows toward her final
destiny which we will in due time
all grow to meet. Yet Kira is Kira.
A Treasury of Friends
Who among family and friends
might know you best than those
with whom you shared your
childhood years in a conspiracy
of self-help, to grow with confidence
and the aid of treasured peers
into the future? With a long lapse
when adulthood takes you away
from one another and fortune
eventually reunites you, the clasp of
friendship is renewed as though
there never had existed a gap.
If that gap represented the major
proportion of your adult life
would it matter? Might they know
you any the less? Would it in any
way diminish the influence you
had on one another in your care
for each other and the encouragement
given in reaching out together toward
the future? Is it ever too late to finally
understand that the appreciation
unspoken requires a spoken and
heartfelt validation, that it is time
at last to spell out that recognition.
Yours Forever
Well, it seems, not forever at all.
Who knows the mysterious ways
of the human heart. These sadly
pensive letters of regret and
longing must have meant
something to whomever they
were meant for, surely? Neatly
handscripted, literate and
heartfelt, I imagine them to have
been addressed by a young
still-heartsick woman to a
young man, their parting amicable
and of mutual agreement however
regretted. They are neatly folded
expressing lingering love and
no solace to be found anywhere
but in memories of time shared
deep in companionship. Discovered
between the pages of a book
discarded for resale, an adventurous
memoir -- so then, written to the
man, one can reason. On the other
hand, this book has been bought
to be given to me, a woman.
Whichever half of an erstwhile
tender pair who tucked the memories
of a love dissolved evidently
dispensable; the evidence in
the discard of book and letters.
When In Doubt
As it is not in the feral minded
creature's nature to harbour the
uncertainty of doubt, for no movement
however slight fails to be captured
by her expectant eye, no whisper
of sound escapes her acute hearing
no odour capable of bypassing
her olfactory sense, she has the
confidence to bark: stop! Who
goes there? For she takes seriously
her self-appointed stewardship of
these forest trails, her responsibility
as guardian deeply impressed on
brain, mind and soul ensconced
in twelve pounds of bone, sinew
muscle and flesh, inspiring her
brother to join the chorus. None
may pass before her authorization
yet many do since she is at heart
of generous disposition, giving
leave to pass on the understanding
it is her authority and hers alone
that magnanimously grants passage.
The Still Silence
This is beauty and tranquility
writ large on nature's landscape.
Our boots barely whispering
in the newfallen snow, as
dense curtains of flakes
steadily descend, a breeze
gently guiding snowflakes
to kiss our cheeks. All ambient
sound is absorbed in the still
silence but for the faint yet
unmistakable staccato of a
piercing beak on a hollow
trunk, creatures of the woods
themselves absorbed in random
acts of simple survival.
Divine Music
Does genius confer upon itself
a greater awareness and
partnership with nature?
Perhaps those brilliant minds
capable of nudging their
brains to wander along
strange pathways to
theorize nature's blueprint
were first nurtured by an
especial endowment at birth
exposing them to the music
of the Universe's rotating
spheres, the soft hissing of
gases, the low moaning of
the celestial winds, the
musicality of light glancing
off ice and meteoric flash-bys
strumming those ineffably
divine chords enticing minds
of genius to leap over the
mundane, grasp the waves of
energy and time to focus on
the purpose of existence.
Winter Masterpiece
The wind bellows its ferocious
breath through the forest frozen
in winter's white cloak. Keening
through the trees lashed by its
pitiless force, a low moan breaks
the stillness of the snow-muffled
woods. Despite its insistence the
embroidered landscape of intricately
bowered patterns resists the relief
unburdening of wondrous tracery;
limbs and branches delicately limned
in layers of ice and snow as though
the fevered genius of an authentic
artistic expression jealously
guarding a sublime masterwork.
Exceptionalism
All lives, the wise among us say
are unique. Except some more
so than others. There is only one
tried soul whom his obituary
can identify as the final survivor
of the Treblinka death camp, now
too gone. Some among us live
double lives reflecting dissatisfaction
with the reality of their own. They
dream of winning a lottery to
free them of financial cares
solving all the ills their lives have
ever confronted them with. Little
knowing, much less caring that
the lottery of life was theirs not
to have been born a Jew in pre-1935
Europe. That last survivor lived
his own double life, that of
normalcy after liberation from
death from a living nightmare
that deprived him of those he loved.
And the live memory of a lifetimes-
worth of horror. Now, laid to rest
both his lives have surrendered to
obliteration in mortality's due time
of human reckoning, nature-designed.
The Magic of Snow
Fresh-fallen snow unleashes the
demons in those two little black
imps that share our household, as
they race outdoors down the steps
of the deck and into the backyard
where, after each fresh fall of
snow a network of passages is
dug out carefully to allow them
ample opportunity to leap and
gambol, fleet as a thought from
one end to the other, trying to
outfox and outrace one another
in a competition of wits and speed
grace and agility and the
incomparable mettle of their
youthful exuberance, still puppies
not yet outgrown their enthusiasm
for life and adventure, curious
about everything that beckons
deftly defying the ordinary and
the expected then fleet as a whistle
their soft silky hair white with
downy granules of snow, they
glide with effortless speed into
the house, happily spreading flakes
of snow before the nuisance of
a towelling exercise can ruin the
gladness of the snowy excursion.
Plush and Inviting
The snow is new and virginal, deep
and plush like a vast cloud descended
from the sky, resting with aplomb on
the landscape of the forest. Its smooth
plumpness interrupted haphazardly in
an effort to break trail, leaving indeed a
broken path of depressions within a
narrow border whose sides rise triumphant
in height with no invitation to disturb
its complacent layers, the result of a
record-breaking snowstorm leaving in
its wake the crispness of a mid-winter
day bright with conspicuous and very
ostentatious beauty, transforming even
the most mundane portions of a forest
into a mysterious wonder of nature.
True, the snow's downy depths are not
congenial to the presence of boots
crushing a path in compressing the
billowing snow, taking its revenge in
unbalancing the snow-hiker's tread to
a lopsided gait that might at any moment
become a slide-prone rest within the
deep and welcoming cushion of white
having no intention of malice, providing
a brief pause in the determined hiker's
progress across nature's forested domain.
The Lightness of Being
We are mad with the lunacy
of ecstatic joy as the freedom to
re-experience the discoveries of
childhood envelop us while we
shriek with laughter, wallowing
in the soft downy depths of a
snowfall whose magical dimensions
eclipsed by far the forecasting of
solemn weather experts, our
high-top boots filling with snow,
our balance challenged by its
depths, our eyes ablaze with
the reflection of the afternoon sun
glancing through the laden snow
bending boughs low. We meander
and pause, our two small dogs
in the depressions our boots create
vaguely where the trails should
be, on the plush of the snow-bedecked
familiarity of the forest floor.
That Arctic Chill
It is unremittingly cold
wind belligerently blasting
an Arctic chill on the
landscape and layers of
accumulated snow brought
in by a succession of
storms has stamped the
season in stark contrasts
of dark and light. Dusk
is falling on the bright
white plush that has
frosted the world and
one wonders how wild
creatures manage to
endure the cold and the
scarcity of food sources
yet somehow they do, the
stoic creatures of nature.
Snowstorm
The billowing frozen confetti
of star-like flakes took possession of
the atmosphere as though daring
the sky to allow wind to sweep
away the moisture-laden clouds
tipping the snow onto the landscape.
It swelled and it descended dense
and all-embracing, burying everything
and anything that stood immobile
from morning to night, unidentifiable
objects thickly coverleted in
dazzling flakes spinning their
magic. Puffed and fluffed with
the arcane mystery of nature.
Never Forgotten
Although we both loved books
and read voraciously, you never
were much of a writer, unlike me
with a roster of writing friends
whom I'd never met other than
through letters that went back and
forth over the years. Many years;
one now long dead, others not heard
from and one whose habit it was to
make carbon copies of all her letters
certain that some day she would be
memorialized and everything she'd
ever written held in perpetuity by some
university trust. She had once erred
and sent me the carbon instead of
the original. I've never kept any
of the letters I've written, but one.
Alongside it is one you wrote to
me at age 16, barely literate, but
profoundly dear, professing your
love for me. The other is one I had
written to you once when you were
away from home and our children
were small, to tell you that we all
were fine, and our youngest child
was digging up the backyard
determined to discover a dinosaur
egg. I've kept those letters, they're
precious, I just don't recall where I
placed them. But no mind, each
and every word is engraved in my
mind, never to be forgotten or mislaid.
Seeking Simple Solutions
They are eternal and everlasting
those questions that perplex
humankind, queried by one
generation after another leaving
each to struggle with an answer
to achieve a final response that
will put those questions and the
search for the solution to the
dilemma forever at rest. What
is the purpose of existence? ask
troubled souls unwilling to live
life to its fullest potential without
knowing why they should bother.
Why is humankind destined to
live a paltry defined lifespan? leading
to a search for a magical elixir or
readily-achieved blueprint to
guarantee long life. Then the
perennial Valentine's Day question:
how do I show my loved one in
how many ways do I love? But
if one loves another the answer is
abundantly clear and achievable.
Love as you would yourself, and
care as much as you do for yourself
and express that love in innumerable
ways throughout the length and
breadth of your lives together.
WeatherBound
True, this is a day of exquisite
winter beauty, the sun sailing its
cauldron of fire against the
unblemished azure of a winter sky's
oceanic endlessness illuminating
the landscape's most recent
abundance of scintillating snow
a vision of wintry perfection.
But beware to venture within
the placid depths of this day
deceptive in its serenity
for weather is to be reckoned with
in its unforgiving frigid depths
plumbing deep Arctic chill, a
coalition of dread morbid threat
fortified by the fierce interaction
of an ill-meaning wind whose blasts
of icy breath stalks death, from
huddled wild creatures to oblivious
humankind failing precautions.
This has been most auspicious
this scintillatingly bright day
beyond bone-chilling
given plunging temperatures
high humidity and incessant wind.
Our boots crunch deeply
into the ice-caked snow
as we pass trees in seasonal
white festoon, wind still busy
urging cakes of snow to !plop!
The sky blue, with drifting
white banners decorating the occasion
a silvery scimitar of a moon
lost in the greater grandeur
of that amazing cosmos.
It is not yet mid of the afternoon
sun sending long shadows
as our legs assume slender
proportions as of gliding tentacles.
As bright as the day has been
there is a darkening quality
hovering in the atmosphere
the sun all too prepared to set.
There is a supreme tranquility
on this shortest day of the year
ushering in calendar winter
though the winter season has long
preceded the calendar.
One an event of nature's making
the other a notion of humankind.
Icy Dead of Winter
February wants us to know
that is is folly to bask in the
comfort of hearing climatologists
wax knowledgeably about the
el Nino phenomenon interfering
with the Arctic freeze penetrating
our winter season this year.
True, the early month has not
been sub-zero and we've been
treated to delightfully mild
winter days and scintillating
snow events, but the wind
has been constant and substantial
whipping icy currents across
the atmosphere, yet that has
been tolerable. To wrest us from
complacency, the month has
now turned its impenetrable face
toward the depth of winter's fury
harnessing icy bluster and
misery to plunge the temperature
and us into the sphere of Arctic
chill. February's warning heeded.
Snowbound Woods
This is a truly radiant day
as how could it not be, snow
falling in gentle spirals all about us
as we tread softly upon the
cushioned woodland trail
serenity engulfing our senses
scant wind to drive the snow
or hurl its icy fingers at bare faces
whipping cheeks fiery-red. No,
this day is winter perfection, soon
the sky an ocean of uninterrupted
azure, mounted by the sun
in its full blazing glory, a golden
sparkling diadem on the crowns
of winter-bare trees, no sound
to challenge the peace absorbed
and muffled by the plushness
of snow creating humped
ghosts of stunted trees.
Impressions
When I was a child I thought
like a child. Now I am aged I think
like a child again. There are learning
moments aplenty when we are young
so young and clearly impressionable.
In our innocence we assume. As a
child I had few possessions but
those given me were treasured. No
dolls or toys, occasionally books and
once a tiny tricycle I learned to pump
with my short, plump legs. I loved it
until a street bully grabbed it and I
fled weeping to 'tell my father'. Go
right back and get it, he ordered and
I cowered and refused. He retrieved
it and its allure faded. One evening
when my mother had washed my hair
I girded myself to tell her with bated
breath that someone had fondled me
in a naughty place and I felt fearful.
She recoiled, warned me never
to repeat such dreadful things then
turned away from me. Before then
I had once overheard her boast to a
neighbour that her child never lied
and from that I understood that to
speak truth was pleasing. When later
I informed my mother that my
uncle abused me I was denied
comforting reassurance for
displeasing her. Then I realized
how complicated life really is.
Astride His Face
A robust young man in his
twenties, his attention diverted
from the potential of public
contamination, his eyes averted
as though busily examining and
parsing some inner conflict that
the presence of others might
conceivably set awry, while
high-decibel-grade sound snugly
infiltrates his ears in punctuated
rap, striding purposefully ahead
wearing a full-throttle scowl
in facial pride of place. Does
this signal a choice of lifestyle
viewing existence as a
solitary emotional wasteland?
Winter Ice
The usual suspects, bedfellows
of winter, adjourned on a
midwinter day and invited
the sun to join the principals
without whose active
investment that season
would be uninspired lacking
in drama and suspense. Snow
ice and wind had performed
their seasonal functions to
perfection, the prevailing
atmosphere frigid to a fault
the wind throwing its weight
around as usual, whipping
itself to a frenzy over the
snow-laden landscape, while
the sun accommodated by
asserting that time-honoured
thaw-and-freeze cycle on the
snowy forest floor transforming
it to the sheer magic of glass.
The Airing
He is lean and he is tall but
stooped only when he leans to
help her, his grey head inclining
toward her own, a padded fairy
godmother figure pushing a walker
with less than authority along the
snow-crusted street. Her rapt
mesmerized fascination with
all she sees, the sky, the clouds
birds and trees prods her to emit
little shrieks of childlike joy
pleasing to her patient, uxorious
husband in whose mind's memory
flashes the lively spark of impish
gaiety the girl she once was
teased him with. They have since
lived their heaven-sent lives
over more years than he can
recall. Now, whatever the season
their daily promenades halfway
up the street, halfway down
her chirping greetings to
whomever they see, comprises
the very last chapter in her own
fading memory and consciousness.
Afflicting Predator
We call him Dufus though his name
really is Rufus. Substituting the
"R" for a "D" more closely reflects
that dog's compulsive propensities.
Our two little sibling pups have made
the acquaintance of many of
their species in their yet-brief
lifetime. Their cognitive capacity
enables them to recognize which
among them are friends and which
constitute a problem. Dufus
represents a multiple problem
and so when we come across
our old acquaintance on our
woodland trails, like us walking
the newer generation of canine
companions, we keep an eye on Dufus.
As we stand and chat our little female
pleads to be lifted into my arms;
this from a blithe spirit with no
patience ordinarily to being carried.
Which leaves her brother vulnerable
to Dufus's typical manoeuvre where
he corners, then backs our little guy
off-trail hard against a tree trunk
while steadily gaining the advantage
his large muscular body sneaking
over the small silently quailing
back of our fellow prodding us to
swoop like eagles to extricate the
mouse from the elephantine
rutting intention of Dufus.
Dinner!
Pit the cherries, section the
clementines, slice the peaches.
There, fruit cocktail dessert done.
Wait, there's your main course
so chop garlic and onion, bell
pepper and tomatoes to begin
the sauce. Dip those eggplant
slices in crumbs and heat the
olive oil, then fry-crisp and pat
down in paper towelling. Wash
the endless spinach leaves and
lightly steam. Now, layer sauce,
eggplant rounds, spinach and
dollops of creamy goat cheese.
Repeat. Did you remember to
sprinkle oregano, basil and hot
pepper flakes over the cooking
tomato sauce? Bake until bubbly.
Inhale that aroma. Yum. Ring
the dinner bell and smile. Serve.
The Ice Man Cometh
Remember the sound the carts and the
horses' hooves made trundling down
the street, and the knife sharpener
calling out to the housewives to get
out there with their knives? I can't
recall if the man selling blocks of ice
came daily, but likely he did, using these
huge pincers to carry the already melting
blocks into kitchens for deposit in ice boxes.
We kids used to hang around grabbing at
ice shards at the back of the cart; if the
vendor could, he's give us a good cuff
to the back of our heads. The horse would
leave steaming balls, lifting his tail in
disdain at us as they carried on to the
next street. These were the days when
the Salvation Army made its presence
known on street corners, in uniform,
unsmiling, serious faces, shiny brass
instruments belting out sacred music in
endlessly repeated performances before
marching on. Remember those times?
I do. Kind of dates me. Yes it does.
But I remember the fat old wrinkled
Nonna next door forever knitting
stomach-churning puce-coloured
mittens and caps and scarves for the
boys over at the front lines in France
and Belgium and Italy. I do remember
all of that, and more, much more. Like
the little house down the street with
no bathroom facilities, but there was
a little shed out back. Where we lived
renting the upstairs flat there was a
bathroom shared by another single
tenant, our family of five, and the
owner's family of two boys older
than me who would sometimes trap
me in that bathroom. I recall, acutely.
Oh, you're leaving, already, none of
your own memories to share? Pity.
