The Insolent Gardener

With a surely equal measure of
potency and impudence I welcome
the season's warming sun, gentle breezes
and rainy forecast, grasping my garden
tools with the profound affect of a
gardener whose planting fervour
will not be deterred. We bargain
with nature, call upon our shared
occupation; she the mistress of all life
we emulating and worshipping her
ineffable power, we seduced by
the errant belief our skills reflect
hers as we plant and pamper
preen and chortle with delight
at success and mourn the failures
because she jealously chooses
to intervene with inclemency to
teach another lesson, the prudent
benefit of modesty, setting pride aside.

Universally Yours

So peculiar, this brief but (thankfully)
rare disorientation, an addling
episode leaving me puzzled as though
some alien life form seeks to intrude
on my innermost and so private being.
A lost soul perhaps, seeking haven
attempting to invade my mind and
briefly succeeding to the extent that
on those occasions it is through the
lens of that lost soul's pained eyes
that I view the dear familiar, abruptly
transformed into the strangeness of
unfamiliarity. This is an odd phenomenon
akin to living obliviously in parallel
worlds, intriguing to some curious
minds perhaps eager to rack up new
experiences, but decidedly having no
appeal whatever to me. Might an
exorcism ceremony conceivably help?
After all, there is no harm in asking.

 

Divine Renaissance

They are hesitant and shy, averse
to the bold brightness of the
spring sun, newly awakened from
a long enforced rest, frozen in time
and place, soil covering them in the
dark chill of winter newly thawed.
But their curiosity over what is
happening above the damp soil
has provoked their raised shoots
and the gardener, stalking her
slumbering garden exults sighting
the clear and unmistakable evidence
that Bleeding Hearts, Columbine
Ladies Mantle and Fritillaries
are tenderly emerging, and soon
apple blossoms, spirea blooms 
Magnolia buds will swell as poppies 
and lilies, irises and beesbalm
remember their time and the 
season to bloom their fragrance
and colour; architecture of a garden. 

Whose Garden Is It?

And there was I, my gardener's keen
eye fixed probingly on bare soil and
plants not yet seen, searching out signs 
of emerging life, examining minutely 
the slender wands of shrubs for a glimpse
of green, to determine if rose stems
had yet sent tentative red buds to
signal the plant an all-safe advisory
and taking stock of unfortunate die-back
when life-on-the-hoof itself was suddenly 
encountered in a fuzzy bundle
rounding on the garden, only to
pull back, astonished as I was at 
our serendipitous meeting. But I
spoke to him and invited him and
reassured, he completed his journey
settling comfortably on the winter
feeding platform for squirrels and
birds, still in business, offering
our hospitality to all who venture
forth, including juvenile raccoons.
So he fed to his brave little heart's
content and I continued my hopeful
spring inventory of loss and gain
satisfied with reasonable expectations.

 

Having Faith

It's slow work, waking the drowsy
winter garden from the depth of
its lifeless rest. Frost penetrates
deep into fertile soil, freezing roots
of shrubs and perennials, hushing
the garden to its prolonged defense
of shrivelled existence, harbouring
a resolution to return at the earliest
possible opportunity. The summer
garden has forgotten its glory days
of texture, colour, form and fragrance
intimidated by winter's brutal ferocity
shrinking from fear of returning ice
storms and wild winds. The winter
garden, sterilized of life is nudged
aside when memory finally surfaces
in the dreaming sequence of a 
spring garden and renewal. By and
by the soil is released, roots recover
purpose and tentative shoots pierce
the surface soil to see for themselves
blue temperate skies and feel the
warming balm of the sun, the clear
cleansing fall of rain encouraging the
garden to renew its timeless faith.

Possession

Perhaps because of his youth
he's unaware nature had
designed him to be nocturnal.
Perhaps his mama whom we've 
seen with him at night failed
to adequately address the issue.
Just as well then, we've put up
temporary barriers between the
backyard composters and access
for our two little dogs who
obviously fail to realize they
are adequately fed a species
specific-appropriate diet and
kitchen waste is not their treat.
In any event, the fuzzy little
fellow with the clever hands is
self-appointed custodian now
during daylight hours of the
compost bins, daintily picking
about in there to satisfy his
undeniable ownership cravings.

Sidling Into Tomorrow

Though no longer primitive our
survival instincts remain intact. Not
as though our planetary resources to
sustain life motivates us to view one
another as competitors against whom
we must arm ourselves. It is not merely
that old habits die hard; here we contemplate
genetic imprinting, the endowment of nature's
survival mechanisms. Yet as enlightened
creatures whose intellects have pondered
physics and the chemistry of existence
manipulating our surroundings through
technique and technology we cannot
suspend suspicion for as humans we
well know what lurks in the mind of man.
Yes, we are chastened and we do earnestly
regret. We know now there are no final
solutions, only ambitions to achieve them.
Never again, however, will we labour
so intensively at such close quarters to
hasten death among those unworthy to
live. Mass destruction deserves the fine
attention that modernity devotes to its
potential. Now we have intercontinental
ballistic missiles armed with nuclear
warheads, capable of far more expeditiously
surprising unready humankind as we
usher in a new world of the last word.

 

Forest Colours

It could be the gloating madcap
laughter of a lunatic roaming in
the woods, but it is not. A Pileated
woodpecker flies through the forest
and it echoes the bird's shrill call
before it settles on the carapace of an
old giant and begins dismantling its
shell in a frantic search for underlying
larvae of the menace that struck the old
pine dead. Blue, blue the oceanic sky in
its pacific presence, the sun gleaming
steadily over the forest canopy. Frost 
has not yet worked its way out of the 
forest floor, yet struggling to free itself 
from winter incarceration are the 
vibrant fresh green furls of bedding
grass whose divine fragrance when it
flowers will transform the forest into
a perfumer's transient shop. Above
in the canopy where conifers nod
the spires of their green presence 
maples are beginning to re-acquaint
themselves with another spring, their
red budding flowers emerging in
contrast to the sepia-tinted vision of
the forest not yet fully divorced from
the monotones of winter display.

 

Magic Happens

Ah, the sudden appearance of life
where a second in time and the
mystical season of spring collide
in a perfect storm of opportunity
surprises us seasonally. The kindness
of the season secured a weather-mild
evening and a rush of rain washed
away stubborn ice while releasing
dormant soil from its frigid prison.
The miracle of new life depends
on such serendipitous links, as
morning brought a dark womb of 
fog and rain ushering in an
afternoon overcast, and humid
invitation to the forest floor. There
on its soggy bed of aeons-worth
autumnal foliage in fine decay
the first stirring of spring splendour
with the tender green tips of
trout lilies and violets emerging, the shy
tri-leaf of trilliums, foliage stippling
honeysuckle shrubs. Tomorrow's sun 
is certain to praise these pioneers.


 

The News Monger

The grotesque vision of a
gnarled, squint-eyed old woman
functioning as the village gossip
predated now-conventional 
news media, a quantum leap
from primitive dissemination
of all the news fit to spew, into
the respectability of all the
legitimate news fit to print
and broadcast. But that venerable
medium, of course, still exists
and sometimes the source takes
us aback. Not necessarily the
despised caricature of yore
but sometimes an individual
of another gender. Take for
example, a hale and smug man
of very large proportions and
stentorian voice posing as Mr. Nice
spreading subtle neighbourhood
slander, a bully in disguise.

Spring Sensations

There, then, the unbearable burden
of miserable cold, icy blasts, ice fog
and snowstorms has departed
tucked away in winter's baggage
though on the forest floor icy remnants
yet challenge the unwary. Now, the
bearable ecstasy of warmth suffuses
the landscape and we inhale the
sweet fragrance of new life bursting
into spring. We foolishly yet hopefully
peer at the leaf-mold richness of
the revealed soil anticipating our
pleasure and surprise in glimpsing
the first of the trilliums, the violets
to exclaim our gratefulness at
Mourning Cloaks and skippers
flittering by illuminated by the sun
filtering through the unleafed forest
canopy, lighting the crimson flame
of a cardinal's flight pealing a paean.

Neighbours

He ambulates and undulates almost
indolently yet with a defined purpose
all his own, that masked creature;
stealthily as befits one who stalks
during the dark hours, furtively
yet with the confidence of his
species, adaptable and given to
exploitation. But this is not some
psychopathic threat his presence
poses, merely a courtesy visit by
a clever survivalist skilled in the
ways of urban life, benefiting
himself through proximity with
and awareness of opportunities
availed through the presence of
homo sapiens, another species that
has excelled in exploiting his wider
environment as well as the creatures
that share it, themselves learning
to avoid, give wide berth, but take
full advantage of all that can be had.

The Misanthrope's Wife

She was by nature warmly congenial
most comfortable when in the
presence of others like herself happily
animated by pleasant companionship.
Her smile radiated the combustible
heat of philanthropia this woman whose
wide clear eyes and incandescent
laugh allowed momentary entrance
to the soul of a lover of souls.
How strange that she feared herself
withering on the vine of matrimonial
rejection when she so ardently
aspired to motherhood. Leading her
to accept a surprising proposal
from a man her polarized opposite
so churlishly antagonistic to close
confines among others, it enhanced
his inborn passion for a hermit's
lifestyle. And she has gained the
knowledge that dismal distance from
others has served to isolate her in a
reversal from her worldview of agape.

 

Spring Forest Jaunt

Freed at last from winter garments
we follow those two little dogs
leaping across snowmelt, and
watch as they dig claws into
melting ice to propel themselves
on the ascent. As bipeds we
lack their quadrupedal advantages.
Snow and ice have not yet entirely
departed the spring forest as we
perambulate under a sea of blue
a fiery sun glowing through the
bare forest canopy. A cardinal
flashes its crimson plumage, alights
and whistles then trills its ecstasy.
I slither and slide down ice 
slushed trails, fall into a micro
lake of snowmelt. My companion
grips to steady me and again
we follow the two black sprites
as beyond, in the inner confines
of the woods, the ghostly sound of
an owl hangs somberly on the air.

Dancing Through Life

His arm tenderly encircles my waist,
his hand on the small of my back
ever so slightly pressing, moving
me in rhythm with his own steps
as we hear the music that recalls
the times of our childhood together.
Others we know do ballroom dancing
for us a ritual has evolved whereby
we do kitchen dancing in response
to a weekly Saturday night radio
program celebrating the sweet
music of the 50s, when we first
met and resolved that being with
one another represented the
aspirations of our lives. And so
we dance, just as we did so long
ago, and the tactile remembrance
of those long-ago days vibrantly
resonates as the warmth of his body
sears mine, and we move in a steady
and graceful recollection of songs
whose words still reflect how we felt
predicting as they somehow did
our destination through life, together.

Ascending Heights

His visage has the well defined
features of a mountain's crags
matching to perfection his lean
and steely musculature. His
appearance that of the quintessential
summitteer, a man who has tested
his mettle and given fair challenge 
to the impervious gods of height
and massive spread. And he has
indeed climbed where others 
dread to venture, felt the wind at
his back, ascending those heights
the brutal afternoon sun sizzling
his forehead. He bears the deeply
weathered ruts his face has earned
suffering all that nature has
subjected him to, felt icy gales and
snow squalls clog his pores and
stifle his breath, yet he smiles
genially. Wave next time you pass
a building being roofed, for he
most likely will wave right back.

 

Transiting

The late afternoon spring sun
slants its rays through the
leaf-bare canopy of the surrounding
forest glancing sparks of icy fire
off snow still packed in its
winter layers on the frozen 
forest floor. The dark green
of spruce and pine needles
glow with a fiery light tinged
with red, the tint proudly borne
by the stalks of red osier dogwood
contrasted with newly revealed
bracken in areas where snow
in melting reveals the damp dark
soil enriched by centuries of
leafmould compost. Bugs are
beginning to hatch, flying free
from underlays of tree bark.
A primeval cry tears the air
as a red-capped Pileated woodpecker
attends to the serious business of
clattering its beak relentlessly
against a groaning old giant 
pine; larvae do well to beware.


 

Sincerely

Usually the phrase is stated
mechanically as a closing
courtesy meaning nothing in
particular yet still capable of
leaving a slight buzz of warmth
as though the impersonal has
great meaning via a person
delivering a service, a stranger
in a casual encounter, a clerk
at the checkout counter careful
to display correct public relations
attitudes breezily knocking off
the parting: "Have a nice day!"

Thus from the lips of an utter
stranger emanates a social nicety
concluding a commercial exchange.
The depth of emotive feeling
concern and kindliness sans
thought and emotion can be far
different when it is delivered by
an intimate other whose spiteful
nature is well recognized in the
spleen on display when leaving
you reeling in emotional disarray.

Those same words are bitten off
with the clear intent to wound.
The blessing is in the swift
termination on the telephone
as the linkage on the line dies.

      

At Our Command

Generous to a fault they are
the two little black imps who are
so attuned to share the adventures
of our day, each day, constantly
ghosting us. Wherever we go
there go they. So solicitous of 
our well-being are they that they
kindly allow us to share our bed,
offer their aid in the kitchen as
taste-testers, take on such onerous
chores as guarding the sanctity
of our home from the presence of 
those unauthorized to enter, and
willingly accompany us on 
forested trail walks. We do so
very much appreciate their 
thoughtful support, deigning
to keep patient company with
large creatures whose temperaments
seem at times puzzlingly mercurial
despite which it is in their nature
to overlook all transgressions
on their pride of sovereign identity 
as spirited, entitled free agents.



 

Manifest Puissance

Any other entity that so haughtily
consistently reneges on promises
and expectations would be recognized
as thoroughly discredited. Nature
however, enjoys a monopoly for there
is no other such as she. What other 
force than that which resides in her 
limitless power is prepared to offer
the very essence of predictable
reliability we so crave? None; hers
is the ultimate decision and powerful
control of all existing elements
that construct her universe. And we,
displeased with her displays of
majesty are left to fume, impotent
and frustrated at our status of puny
onlooker and hapless bystander
to her power. Just as well we are
readily mollified when a gesture as
supremely pacific as a lovely day
is capable of disarming our plaints.

Now, Then!

Of a certainty it's a brave new world
we live in, particularly for the elderly
among us, and among us there are
particularly a plenitude of elderly
whom modern medical technology
has gifted with an elongated lifespan.
Technology has transformed the world
in so many ways, one of them instant
communication beloved of the young.
The elderly prefer face-to-face talk.
And they do talk among themselves
since there is much to speak of. The
outrageous cost of everything, as an
example, since they can recall the pittance
paid for consumer goods that now cost
what was back then a month's salary at
least. At least they say it to be so.
The music of today is not so much 
music, they agree, as an agony of
disturbed sound, nowhere near what
they were familiar with in that world
they inhabited long ago. The weather,
that's a topic that is inexhaustible, and
rife with its own controversies. Some
times they agree between them that
some things will never change, and that
perhaps they should not. But the changes
that brought them to a longer life are
welcome, thank you very much, as they
launch into a comparison of who it was
who managed to recover faster after their
open-heart, triple-bypass surgery. Yet
they do agree that their offspring and the
offspring of their offspring will just have
to practise patience for their inheritance.

Goodwill Ambassador

Nature by her very nature is resolutely
impervious to pleas and complaints
in equal measure. Yet we persists and
she resists. Her seasons are confused
and confusing to her tenants, birds
returning north from their winter
sojourn in the south and furred forest
denizens emerging from hibernation
find a landscape frozen in the time
they had escaped still awaiting them.
Almost mid-April, with days alternating
between icy rainfall and snow squalls
freezing and dispiriting us all. Out
comes her goodwill ambassador as
the warming sun casts its brilliance
upon the landscape so all is forgiven
when that orb of light and life pledges
to remain awhile, an honoured guest
transformed from its frequent traveller
status, to melt the ice and snow and us.

This Is Spring?

The cardinal in our backyard
is certain the spring song he
trills is an accurate reflection
of the season. The robins
searching in our gardens
for live bugs and worms
do so in trust of the season
but in vain. The returning flock
of redpolls feasting at our
bird feeders don't much 
concern themselves that nature
has confused the issue of
spring versus winter as snow
squalls alternate with rain
in an exercise of raw weather
polarization -- an insecurity of
reality challenging expectations

Hope and Redemption

These were trying circumstances.
She was not the first person of faith
to tell me she would pray for me
two women temporarily facing insecurity
and the tension of fear. Both of immigrant
stock, a Jew and an Arab, ours was
not a declaration of suffering but a
brief and moving affirmation of life.
Her mother's was lost, a victim of
violence in their small Lebanese town
leaving her motherless and emotionally
vulnerable, this personable, emotively
empathetic woman before me, warmly
hugging away my tears. So I tell her
of my mother in the Pale of Settlement
the family home bombed by Whites
targetting Jews and Reds, father and
brother dead, my mother with shrapnel
impaling her eyes. And my father
a 13-year-old orphan found wandering
the streets of Warsaw, sent off to
Canada to labour as an indentured
farmhand, eventually paying off his
passage. The world as one of strife,
want and pity, ultimately leading to
enduring hope and redemption.

Comfort of Strangers

Some women are stoic in the sharp
face of emotional pressure, some
even sanguine, accepting that what
will be, will be. This old woman was
none of that. She entered the hospital
waiting room bedraggled and ashen
finding a corner space unoccupied
turned her face to the wall and wept.
In that crowded waiting room sat
others grimly tense, awaiting word
of loved ones post-surgery. The
prevailing silence oozed an air of
indifferent puzzlement until one
middle-aged woman, her broad face
creased with concern shifted in her
seat to lean toward the figure
wracked with heaving tears. Enveloping
the weeping figure in a warmth of
soothing empathy, two women
rose to wrap themselves about her
murmuring their feelings, urging
despair to permeate the atmosphere
until the pain became manageable
under a torrent of understanding hugs.

At A Glance

What does she see when she 
looks in a mirror, that desiccated 
old woman for whom 'spry' long 
since abandoned the conceit of 
description? She totters beside 
her doddering husband whose 
tousled white mane attests to 
good hair genes while her dense 
black cap of hair could crown 
the head of a vigorous teen. What 
fond illusion does she subscribe
to, flirting with her past self in 
that dark head of hair, recognition 
studiously avoiding the creased 
and ashen complexion, the stooped 
shoulders, the weary mien. But 
then the faded eyes see what they 
imagine, pleased in the vision, certain 
that this is the image conveyed to an 
admiring audience of observers.

Tranquil and Still

The fiery orb of the sun
burns its passage across
an ocean-blue sky, its
warmth concealed by the
ice-fire of a winter day,
wind whirling and whipping
feathery snow into every crevice.

Bright spears of sunlight
pierce the crowns of deciduous
trees, their limbs black and bare
against a landscape heavily
sifted with snow, stumps in
ghostly shapes haunting the
atmosphere, tranquil and still.

The snow, powdery-light, sits
fully on conifers transformed
into delicate white pagodas,
translucent in the blinding
light.  That transcendental
light of the sun paints a 
glow over the  canopy of
the forest, capturing magic.

 

Slip-and-Slide

Pushing eighty? Well, so what!
We're like a pair of challenged
kids early out of school
on this knife-edge windy day
ample snow still on the ground
in nature's notional tip to
spring, the freeze-and-thaw
has turned the forest trails
to sheet ice, and we tread
not-so-sure-footed whooping
with laughter as our two little
dogs slip and slide and we do 
too, but remain upright both
downhill and uphill, the sun
overhead beaming approval.

You, My Dear, and Me

We are alike and unalike. Only the
first fourteen years of our lives
were lived without knowledge of one
another. Yet I maintain the belief
that somehow I knew you before then
that you came to me in a dream, so
real that when we did meet I was
quick to recognize you. Over the
years that have since passed we have
grown more alike one another, yet
our differences persist. I remember,
do you? Often you do, and I don't.
But we recall in tandem the flavour
of our youth, the shared time together
you assuring me with your steadfast
presence, and taking pleasure in
mine. When we were young and
newly married, when we moved to
a home of our own, neighbours
asked where our parents were, certain
we were brother and sister. Brother
you are to me, lover, husband, son
and father because you encompass
in yourself everything that is tender
and true and beloved, my dear one.