Help! (I think)

I'm drowning, sinking under the
weight of an ocean of books as tomes
and novellas, biographies and
historical accounts weigh me slowly
into a stupor of knowledge indigestible
in its sheer collective gravity. This
house, once so capacious has become
stifling under the close pressure
of tightly-stacked volumes of the
printed word. Floorboards groan in
a overload of stress matching the
distress of my overworked mind and
memory. On the opposite side of the
ledger rank the emotions of a 
powerful curiosity refusing to be sated
the overwhelming joy in the sight of
packed bookshelves the visceral greed
of acquisition that overcomes caution.
My eyes and my saturated brain 
devour the contents of those patiently
waiting books overwhelming my
capacity to fully absorb their contents
but truth to tell, occasional panic
that I shall never outlive their
inherent entitlements on my time and
absorption aside, I am content even
within the crisis of the imperative of
their urgency for without their
presence what fulfillment is there?

 

Enter Leisure

The thick stillness of a hot
summer night was suddenly 
rapped by the muffled crack
of a composter's lid pried away
by familiar raccoons waking
dogs to softly bark awareness.
Soon a grey dawn sent its
tentative shafts through
bedroom windows and the
piercing whistle of a hawk
announced the day. The
disagreement between twilight
and daylight revealed the
grey displaced by rosy fingers
of the mounting day's sun
as sleepers roused themselves
to greet a good-natured day
heralded by the penetrating
trill of a cardinal welcoming
the prospect of pleasure.

In The Shadows

What to think, how to regard
that unfathomably eerie presence
you feel, an delusional, haunting
so inexplicable within an
otherwise-rational mind. So
what could it be, what its meaning
just a strange figment of an
oddly-perturbed imagination?
It is as though some arcane presence
lurks at the very edge of one's sight
fading the second you turn to
confront it. You have returned
to another time, in a place
dimly recalled, and there that
presence follows wherever
you turn. Is it the past entering
the future, yourself at a remove
of time, or merely an intersecting
universe nudging up against
your own, a doppelganger 
presence as curious of his unique
experience as you think you are 
of  this one imposed; trapped.

That Jewish Sage

Would he be amused, bemused,
troubled or, knowing the frailties
of humankind, simply shrug and
carry on with his ministry, this
Jewish son, this prophet, this
philosopher-king, this lover of
humankind, with his empathy and
his mission to make of us all 
better humans than we have been, 
paying homage to the tenets of his 
teaching while failing to personally 
practise what he preached, expecting 
others to conform to the ineffable 
message believing themselves exempt 
from doing unto others in justice,
preferring simply to do unto others.
Would he, returning, rebuke us
all or chide himself for ever
believing that more might be
expected of humankind?

School Days

School Days

It’s really quite amazing, when you think about it, how physically mature young girls are in this new generation. Obviously they’ve a long way to go to emotional maturity. It’s the development of their bodies, that mature delineation that is amazing. And their social maturity. Their knowledge about all the current pop-culture figures, the celebrities, the issues revolving around current technologies, films, popular teen novels, that kind of thing.

They’re also, obviously in the habit of groping around, metaphorically, trying to get a fix on things that puzzle them, mostly personal relationships. And thinking, thinking and wondering about all those confusing, sometimes troubling emotions that don’t quite know how to handle. And that four-letter word that is so confusing. Does it equate with love? Can't, not possibly, the way it comes out sounding so ... squalid. And awkward, unbelievably miserable, actually.

Just have to think back (squeamishly for some) of the sex education classes thrust on them from ... let's see ... grade five or thereabouts. When some of them really resented having to focus on things like that because it was boooring, and after all they were kind of young for that kind of thing, weren't they?

The girls at this school represent rural children, raised in a countrified atmosphere not far from a large, cosmopolitan urban centre. They are, themselves, cosmopolitan to a good degree. How could it be otherwise in a world of instant, constant communication, where everyone has a cellphone, access to computers and the Internet, and the rumour mill is constantly grinding out fascinating stories of adventure and social misadventure.

It’s a two-story school, originally built to accommodate roughly 350 students. The student population has been gradually declining, due to the fact that the families themselves are aging. Currently only 161 children attend the JK-to-8 elementary school. Which meant that classes were most often combined to make more functional use of classrooms and teachers.

It’s the Grade 7-8 class that’s out for recess this wintry day of minus-6-degree windchill. Not all that cold, to be sure, but plenty of snow accumulated. The class is a small one, divided between boys and girls, the girls having a slight edge on the boys. Ages twelve to thirteen, taught by a young woman with ten years teaching behind her, all at the same school. Her reputation has always preceded her; the students in grades 6 and 7 having been informed through the living grape-vine of school talk that she has a tendency to hysteria.

All the students had ample time over the summer months to prepare themselves for a new school year replete with plenty of homework, a new curriculum, and an instructor whose propensity to screeching never endeared her with any of her former students.

In fact, some of the students from the previous year’s graduating class, now attending high school in another nearby town, still regularly text-messaged some of the younger kids with whom they’d established friendships, occasionally asking about the most recent melt-downs of their former, detested grade 8 teacher. It was easy to whoop with laughter when you were no longer in her class.

For those remaining at the elementary school, anxious to complete the year and go off to first year high school, their teacher was an oppressive presence rather than the guiding hand most of them wished for. The school year hadn't, actually started out that way. Despite her reputation for bullying and solving problems of insubordination by hysterics, she hadn't yelled at them all, at first. Those were the honeymoon months.

Since then, she has repeatedly informed her class that they're collective nincompoops, learning-impaired, lunatics and malcontents. And they reciprocate by stony silence, then a whispered "retard!" between them, expressing their contempt for their teacher.

That, however, is beside the point of the events that occurred yesterday, when the class was out at recess on a blowy, snowy day. The girls perambulated separately from the boys, of course. They were as two separate species, acknowledging mutely the presence of each gender, but strict avoidance really worked best.

It was a trifle too cold for the more casual gear most of the boys and some of the girls had latterly effected. This day everyone wore hooded jackets, even if the hoods weren’t being worn. And many also wore ski pants - or more likely snow-boarding pants, to enable them to fool about in the snow and not end up with wet, cardboard-hard jeans afterward that would make them miserably uncomfortable for the remainder of the school day.

Two girls walked together in close conversation. They were long-time friends, had gone through the school system together, and lived not far from one another; one in an converted log cabin that had once been the local schoolhouse since modernized, the other in an old farmhouse on property owned by several generations of her family. They were very tall girls, very well developed, standing equal in height to their teacher. Who was out, doing yard duty that day.

The girl with the curly hair in a black-and-white checked jacket with a faux fur edging around the jacket’s limp-hanging hood (no self-aware - and they are all magnificently, vulnerably self-aware - teen would be seen sporting anything that could be taken as an actual pelt, or part of one, of nature’s environmentally embattled creatures. Faux does very nicely, thank you, and the more outrageously-elaborated-and-tinted-obviously-faux, why the better) first saw a younger classmate approaching and warned her partner.

Her friend, in a hot-pink jacket that emphasized her long burnished-blonde hair, grimaced as they both turned to await the approach of a grade 7 girl whom they both detested. The girl had her own group of friends, and why she insisted on bothering them continually was a bafflement and an irritation to them both. The younger girl, dressed in a full suit of purple jacket and matching snow pants, stopped just short of them, and performing an elaborate twist, kicked up a thick dust of snow against the legs of the older two girls. Who stepped back from the approaching snowdrift, turned their backs on the younger girl, and proceeded to walk away. When they stopped again, to continue their conversation, they became aware that the other student had followed them, when another drift of snow hit their jeans-clad legs.

“Stop that!” said the girl with the black-and-white jacket, turning angrily on the younger girl. “What do you think you’re doing? We’re not wearing ski pants, and we aren’t thrilled about getting snow all over us, thanks to you. What’s the matter with you?”

The younger girl smirked in response, and again repeated the twist and thrust, sending another spray of wet snow and ice bits onto the two girls’ jeans. Then stood there, hands on hips, waiting. A sudden silence seemed to envelop that portion of the school yard, as the younger girl’s companions, standing not far off, watched intently. An unfolding drama, just the kind of interesting event that gripped everyone’s attention on an otherwise-boring day.

“I told you to stop it”, said the girl evenly, her voice steady, but a threat of response lingering in the statement.

“Too bad, so sad”, trilled the other, and let loose with another spray.

“Warned you, didn’t I?” the older girl said, as she aimed a kick at the younger girl’s legs. Accurate contact.

The younger girl ran off, stopping in front of their teacher who had observed everything.

“Well, who told you to keep bothering them?” she asked.

Later, in the gym, the class was assembled for a co-ed dance, none of them wanted to engage with, and everyone quietly grumbled about. This class was very good at quiet grumbling, and even better at class rebellion. It didn’t take much for them to form a chorus of dissent, unwilling to give attention to a teacher given to melt-downs instead of firm control. This, she informed them firmly, was important. A choreographed dance routine for the school Christmas concert.

But then, they were soon diverted by another little drama. The same grade 7 girl, of almost equal height and weight as the two grade 8 girls whom she seemed to constantly shadow, once again approached the curly-haired and the blonde straight-haired companions. Stopping directly in front of the curly-haired girl, to shout directly in her face that she was a “horrible bitch” for having kicked her.

The girl receiving the message hardly blinked. But she did, emphatically, order the other to “back off, stupid. Don’t screech in my face. Get lost, Psycho”.

Which enraged the younger girl even further and she stood her ground, belting out a series of profanities at the older girl who reiterated her previous demand that the younger girl cease and desist: “I don’t appreciate stupid kids screaming in my face. Kindly back off.”

When nothing resulted but further denunciations of equally shrill dimension, along with a number of choice expletives, the older girl raised her hand and slapped the other in the face.

This was the first and only time the older girl had ever allowed herself to succumb to physical reaction in the face of any kind of provocation. She could recall her grandmother having told her, years ago when she was little and had been a victim of a bullying child, to hit back. She had recoiled, said to her grandmother she couldn’t do that, it wasn’t right. Now, after her hand had made contact with the cheek of the other girl, she felt a flood of released energy melting away her fury. She felt good about what she had done. And, as the enraged younger girl continued her rant-and-advance, she raised her hand to whack her again.

Which was when she became aware of many hands pulling her, pulling at her shoulders, her waist, pulling her away from the other girl. And that obnoxious pest, she saw, was also being pulled away from her near presence.

This was not a good day, nor a way to end a less-than-sterling school day.

Later, when the young girl with the curly hair got back home after school, she texted her grandmother:

Hello, im so frustrated with Mrs.Mccauley i swear im going to kill her she got all mad at me today for a million little things where i dont know what i did wrong like during math, lunch, crafts and dance. (gym) Then theres this girl darby who i almost murdered today she kept kicking snow at me because i wasnt wearing snowpants so she thought that was ok. then during dance/gym she kept screaming in my face so i told her to stop and she got louder so i pushed her away and of course she did it again so i slaped her and once again for the millith time she came back and then people started to kind of pull us apart thank god because i was about to kill her

Her grandmother sat there, staring at the message, aghast. All those spelling errors. What were they teaching young people in school, these days?

 

The Sky Afire

From the primal infancy of
human life forward we have 
looked to the heavens for 
signals of the meaning of
existence and discovered there
a panoply of supreme beings
viewing humankind as an
experimental game where
emotions of fear or exaltation
could be manipulated toward
wars of random conquest and the
faithful worship of the unknown. 
The timeless presence of gods 
practising their manoeuvres
and machinations for amusement
and mechanical understanding
of cause and effect through
human surrender to the auspices 
of those on high with all the
fiery carnage and destruction
leaving the Earth aheave in
bloody flesh rotting on a
historical battlefield gave
instruction-through-rehearsal
to the gods enabling them to
better perpetrate their own
frenzied demolitions for are we
not made as humans in the
very image of the gods above?
Hence, the sky a battlefield.

 

The Plot, The Feint

The forest sits languid and
sodden this late summer day
steaming and steadily dripping.
Dawn's twilight was freighted
with the urgency of thunder
roiling the sky occluded by
dark layers of cloud in a
conspiracy to transform the 
world into an aquatic landscape
of deep and mysterious origin.
By afternoon the sun had burned
its brief passage convincing the
atmosphere to relax its vigil
but this strategy to deceive
was soon unravelled when the
wind swept purple-rimmed 
clouds before the sun and wave
after wave of deep-throated
drumrolls rumbled, warning
the forest of more, much more
of the same to inundate its
placid belief in reasonable stasis.

 

The Wisdom of Trees

We don't popularly attribute
sensate consciousness to plant
matter but naturalists in the field
of botany seem to feel otherwise
as studies reveal plant response to
music, and anyone who takes a
walk in a forest on a wildly windy
day becomes aware of the moaning
and clacking of tree tops, albeit a
mechanical response. Not, though
the network of underground roots
and the hypotheses supported by
research that mature trees nurture
saplings, and that trees feel pain
and technology has demonstrated
that distress emanates from living
plant matter appearing to conclude
the impression placing it into the
realm of certitude. Look here,
some wag years ago decided to
transform an elderly tree from its
introvert status when it was barely
noticed, to that of a genial extrovert
when attention is focused on its
exterior display of personality.
From the laboratory of science
to the hilarity of a cynic's take on
the matter, we trust that trees
among their other attributes have
developed a sense of wry humour.

Prelude to the Storm

The billowing grey clouds
black-and purple-tinged
with the clear and present
promise of descent into
sound-and-fury loom above
the verdant canopy of the
forest, bathed in early
twilight where an eerie silence
prevails, preluding the storm
to burst the clouds and drench
the atmosphere. Silence is
broken by the shrill cry of
a hawk as it coasts on the
wind ushering in the rain.
No reward for this raptor
until the rain is stilled and
vapour rises from the 
inundated forest and its
creatures venture out of
their shelters to pursue
the normal business of
their kind; those that browse
and those that fly in ardent
and ultimately successful
bloody pursuit of prey.

Fanfare for the                                                                      Common Man

Disaffected voters in America
have found their voice in a man
of uncommon wealth and privilege
better recognized as a modern-day
circus barker, the epitome of a
rakish charlatan who claims to speak
truth to power, owing nothing to no
one. In an inexplicable fit of
delusional fervour his admirers
see salvation in the hysteria of
acclaiming a pompous ignoramus
whose fondest icon is his own
mirrored reflection projecting a
gravitas and dignity that form no
part of his bearing or being. He
promises to return America to its
core beliefs and the security of its
insular passions, no longer deigning
to share its greatness with nervous
allies, observing the rallies with
dread that uphold the vision of a
nation estranged from the world.
The world outside shudders in 
disbelief, revulsion and fear at the 
mad spectacle of a powerful nation
consigning itself to the status
of a failed empire. But it is the
collateral fallout on the world body
that consumes an uneasy future.

The Messenger

Those among us who self
congratulate cerebral process
in a peerless memory often
suffer the fate of the egotistical
mind-to-brain comeuppance
when memory, tasked with a
simple retrieval, fails, leaving
the mind to flail about in a
frantic search that invariably
fails, leaving trust dejected.
But while the conscious mind
seeks fruitlessly, then suffers
the pangs of uncertainty, the
messenger-mind studiously
goes about its assigned business
of checking memory's neglected
files quite independently of its
mentor. Nothing distracts it
from its diligent search as it
opens, then closes each of
those dimly stored, forgotten
files until the successful and
inevitably tardy extraction and
the sudden revelation nudges 
memory, passing the result to
the exultant mind, restoring
due confidence in the mythical
mystical, arcane processes of
the all-too-human brain.

Invasion

They fly in with the overstated
confidence their presence will
be tolerated, if not quite welcomed.
As though your privacy and proud
possessions should be shared
without your permission. Such
utter arrogance of the self-entitled
is no formula for the expectation
of welcome. Instead, with gritted
teeth and girding oneself, the
host bridles with the type of
hopeless indignation known to
the put-upon at the appearance of
unexpected and unwanted visitors
who bypass the courtesy of an
invitation, much less an idea of
when they plan to depart. Leaving
the host to plan for methods to
hasten their departure, through
means of hostile permanence
outraged at their flouting of decency
in displays of public copulation
while in the process destroying
prized garden specimen, those
foreign predators with the iridescent 
carapaces viewed as vermin for
their culpability in gardening 
circles; themselves objects of
nature's beautiful design, alas.

 

Possession Challenge

This is our garden, not quite
Eden but as close to resembling that
fabled garden as we could manage
with little discussion required over
appetites for forbidden fruit. It is
where we spend countless hours
absorbed in primping floral displays
of seasonal perennials and summer
annuals co-ordinating colour and
the garden architecture of flowering
shrubs, showy ornamental trees
climbing roses and fragrant heritage
species along with whatever we can
purloin from a nearby forest of
native flowering species. All to
tease the senses and please our
restive aesthetic. We are attentive to
irrigation requirements and respond
to deadheading spent blooms, and 
the need to pluck garden pests from
destroying the vibrant harmony of
the landscape. The lawns must be
maintained, green and lush as the
requisite background to our 
pleasure in what we accomplish.
Other inhabitants of this household
feel confident in their opinion that
this has all been presented for their
personal leisure, in tribute to the
esteem in which they are regarded
as the ultimate household rulers.

A Friend, Unmet

I simply like the man though
I've never met him. Actually, I have
no idea who he is -- wait, that should
be past-tense -- nor where he lived
what he did, who his family might be.
But that this man was someone I
could have befriended seems assured
judging his character through his
portrait, the means by which I have
indirectly met him. Granted, one is
cautioned against judging a book by
its cover, but a portrait reveals much
and this man clearly was kind,
considerate and dependable, likely
highly intelligent as well. I never met
him, as how could I, for even at my
advanced age, he no longer lived
by the time I was born; a simple fact
revealed by his turn-of-the-19th-Century
portrait. Commissioned, no doubt, by
the corporate interests he represented.
And one wonders, if  his portrait was
considered appropriate to hang in a
boardroom as a sign of respect, why
was it later abandoned neglected,
the canvas torn and no longer framed
so that no one but me saw its value
reflecting its price, as a tribute of
note to a humble yet worldly and
worthy man, now long forgotten. 

 

Naming It

How time flies, how strange
that a diseased ideology can influence
so many verging on psychopathy that
becoming a vehicle to deliver mass
death on unsuspecting innocents be
interpreted as a critical touchstone
a pathway to eternal glory and an
honoured presence as a celebrated
martyr, particularly favoured by God.
Where once-intrepid tourists eager
to witness the wonders of the world
acquainting themselves with exotic
cultures from heritage sites around
the world concerned themselves
primarily with hopes for clement
weather conditions while their
governments issued alerts on the
incidence of minor crime, warning of
pickpockets, of undrinkable water,
unsanitary conditions, or the prevalence
of insect-borne diseases. Now the alerts
dwell on the potential for vulnerability
to terrorism, now media globally
feature horrendous real-time videos, 
images of scores dead on the streets,
wounded crowding hospitals and
the macabre celebrations of Islamists
warbling their delight over conquest.


 

Flirting With Nature

Flirting with sound and fury
has its inherently exciting moments
and its undeniable dangers. Sometimes
we gamble and sometimes we win.
A loss is more frequent, when we
hazard a summertime hike in the
woods and extreme weather conditions
of nature's making produce fierce
thunderheads then we view the 
rage of the heavens in combat with
weapons of thundering mallets
and powerful electric swords leading
to an inundation of pure misery.
Others have been less fortunate
when lightning strikes, or massive
wind gusts create toppling trees
creating threats of tree-deaths. We
tempt fate as vulnerable creatures
trusting that a day's oblivious commune
with nature will elevate our moods
through the exposure we crave in
the serenity of her benevolence.

 

Living Art

One might name them gardens
in miniature, thriving with life and
energy, fragrant and heart-stopping
in their form, texture and vibrant colour
those floral shapes of surpassing
beauty. They are glorious works
of living art, pleasing beyond belief
at their jolting vision of a tiny
landscape, a portable Eden
confronting our challenged
sensibilities in a busy world of
distractions and concerns. Their
serene and lovely presence lends
sublime elegance to any setting
far outdistancing the pedestrian
orderly regimented gardens of
tidy beds and boring borders. These
urns containing their very own gardens
reflecting classical antiquity's lore
of ornamenting nature's divinely
enchanting flora have travelled
through the ages, surviving and
flaunting their irreplaceable role to
lovers of nature and living treasures.


 

The Rioting Garden

There is a riot ongoing right
outside my door. My eye is arrested
and there I stand, defenses absent,
a prisoner of the garden, where a
riot of form and colour, competing
shades and shapes contrasting and
appealing wage their battle for
territory and assumed entitlements
to grandstand and purloin from
neighbours their hard-fought
recognition as blooming champions
in a never-ceasing struggle to 
obtain and maintain vaunted status
as the epitome of garden grace,
perhaps overlooking that the
timeless foundation of a well-ordered
garden is the graciousness permitting
rivals in beauty and presence their
opportunity to share centre-stage.
But no, their stubborn pique against
fair acceptance calls me, the
caretaker of the garden, to arm
myself with spade and secateurs
to enter the fray, chastising and
committing the miscreants to order.


 

The Agony of the Garden

The existential stress inflicted on
all living things in extremes of weather
reflects the misery of the parched garden
under the fierce summer sun, sizzling
delicate blooms, shrinking foliage
as the exalted beauty of summer
flowers withdraw in sheer misery in
an uncommon heat wave. The heat is
a cloying tempest of high humidity
and searing wind; the excess of an
afternoon exposure of extremes. The
agony of the garden is suddenly
broken with an approaching series
of heavenly blasts enclosing the sun
behind shutters of purple cloud
as the sky is rent by thunderheads
sending their electrical calling cards.
Soon the garden has been doubly
battered, prostrate from the debilitating
breath of the sun followed by a
previously desiccating wind that
now hurls watery blasts of rainfall,
a copious drenching washing away the
torrid heat in bursts of assaulting
rain, piercing and tearing the elegant
garden, ragged and dishevelled, yet
defiant in its intent to husband the sun
and rain to its defence and repair.

 

Looting The Woods

Would anyone give a mind to
protest, if they knew of my intent 
to select native specimens from the
forest floor to transplant in my garden?
Like a stealthy thief I prepare my
illicit tools. Site survey in all seasons
long since undertaken, I have become
a skilled looter. My bag of gainful
enterprise simple enough: gloves,
spade and receptacles of just-right 
size to enclose my treasures within 
for easy transport. My garden, beloved
and nurtured, holds trilliums, foamflower,
trout lilies and magnificent, giant
Jack-in-the-pulpits well adapted
now to their cultivated home, those
pilfered native plants. As from today's
outing in the woods and my swift
stoop-and-acquire efforts in the sweet
shade of the forest canopy, wild ginger 
too, has joined my thriving garden.

Garden Pride

One sits, surely on the slope
of a precipice when pleasurable
gratification escapes the bounds 
of reason to become unearned pride
a hairsbreadth from hubris when
one takes full and unattributed
credit for what nature herself has
designed and nurtured, to look
upon it dreamily as a scintillating
mirage, not reality, revelling in its
ephemeral, glowing beauty
to conclude that I, not nature,
gave the garden life. In assuming and
claiming too much I surely risk
attracting the penance of regret
following ruin, for nature, not I,
commands the elements that
can conspire to make me rue 
my impulsive, compulsive pride.

Down the Garden Path

He led me down the garden path
a frail old man, to reveal his
magic kingdom, gardens of utter
delight, revealing to my incredulous
gaze his pact with nature in an
exchange of mutual admiration;
he for her creative inspiration
she for the zealousness of his
adoration of those creations
where creatures of the sky, the land
and the sea find haven in his
fixation on nature's bounty. There
is where I see Camperdown Elm,
Catalpa and White Birch of a
decidedly venerable elegance
anchoring a series of beds and
borders where Magnolias and
Hibiscus bloom. And where native
wild mullein thrive where they
seed, and a silent, grave Buddha
sits watch over a tranquil, trickling
pool. Birds and bees, frogs and
lizards, deer and chipmunks convene.
This is the ethereal, luminous
garden of a man whom first sight
betrays, but whom nature has 
generously invigorated, nudging him
back to younger days; his industry
and aesthetic triumphs leaving me
breathless with the spirit of envy.