Accident-Prone
You cannot help but wonder
why any thinking person
would place themselves in
harm's way like the fellow
who chose not to use his
van's driver's side seat belt
driving that iced-up highway
one winter day. That's the day
he was thrown clear of the
vehicle in a multi-car pile-up
landing him right next to his van
in a morbidly parlous condition
which didn't stop him from
reaching across his overturned
vehicle to turn off the ignition
before falling into a coma.
He recovered from the physical
trauma but will never himself
be in shape to run again, as
the engine in that van did after
the crash. Fifteen years on
walking with cane in one hand
leash for his muscled Doberman
in the other, he ambulates carefully.
Not too carefully since he also
thoughtfully winds the leash
tightly around his left hand and
when the dog suddenly lunged
into an unexpected lurch toward
another dog, breaking the fingers
of his hand. But fingers heal and
his did, and he once again walks
confidently with his faithful dog
body learning to untwist from
that question-mark shape he'd worn
for so long now, his right-hand
tight-fisted, fingers still clenched
firmly around that dog's leash.
Living Magic
What miracles erupt from the
Earth that nourishes us in timeless
iterations of life and death, when
winter departs and the soil warms
so sap rises in the trees and spring
sun and rain return their foliage and
more, much more, for peaches and
plums, cherries and apples, pears and
nuts transform their carriers into
cornucopias of plenty. Our gardens
will never cease their bountiful
surprises, gracing us with gifts we
had no idea were forthcoming when
we filled our compost bins with
kitchen waste and watched
incredulous as tomato vines appeared
and cucumbers as well, flowering
and spreading in the most unlikely
places, the graceful fronds of corn
stalks among the irises, and vines
creeping up among the roses to
reveal growing globes we will
eventually harvest and marvel at
their taste on our breakfast table,
ripe, juicy and sweet melons, all that
nature teases us unsuspecting gardeners
with; undue rewards granted her
admiring corps of emulators.
Raw Nature
The prolonged, startling-shrill cry of a
pileated woodpecker percolates through
the early morning twilight of the forest
awakening to another summer day.
The bird, its primal head and beak
tasking a dying beech is in its
native element, shattering the trunk
in glaring splinters betraying the
power of its size and relentless
hammering. It has no specific agenda
to hasten the tree's expiry date
but it will. This dense, green landscape
is its kingdom, nature programmed
its remote ancestors to the same
tireless and timeless blueprint and
none in the forest can challenge its
reigning entitlement as the
chief curator of the forest's biome
standing in regimented display for its
inspection dutifully carried out in
obeisance to its custodianship, seeking
out burrowing insects and their progeny,
tidying up the forest as one whose agency
is the arrest and detention of insect
pestilence preying on the forest, while
itself destroying their havens, one
relentless predator recognizing the
other; the odd harmony of raw nature.
Illuminating Day
The dark shades of night have
retreated in a slow-motion rhythm
of dawn inviting the resting sun
to its ritualized heavenly throne to
preside with its imperial majesty
over another late summer day.
A shimmering haze of first light
pierces the gloom of night
still sizzling with the humidity
of previous days' lingering heat.
The tranquility of the early
morning forest is suddenly
graced with the sweet, bright notes
of a cardinal's trill. And with that
sublime fanfare, the risen sun
blazes its golden breath through the
forest canopy, illuminating day.
Garden Pride
What greater pleasure
than surveying at timely leisure
the results of our nagging
garden muse on the conscience
of reluctant gardeners? Our
laggardly tendency to
ignore weeds in the garden
forgetting to tidy spent blooms
water the garden beds and
borders when rainfall is scarce
are those times when our
diligent muse whispers her
admonishments in our
elsewise-occupied ears,
spurring us to tardy action.
But oh so rewarding the results
as greenery and living beauty
thrives and throbs bearing no
grudge at our haphazard
attention to duties we surely
owe our faithful garden.
Garden Afire
That this area in which
we live has experienced
summer drought sees us
diligently appeasing our
prized garden urns with
the considerable aid of
watering cans in the hope
that the floral bouquets
we so assiduously plant
and nurture will survive
nature's forgetfulness
failing to advise the heavens
to open their life-giving spigots.
Our hopeful ministrations, as
anyone can see, have created
conditions suitable to
lighting fires of flaming
colour in those urns and
we trust its intensity will
burn cool, failing to consume
the delicate blooms in
our garden landscape.
There he is again, big, bluff and hearty,
plodding down the long hill as we trudge up.
Booming voice greeting us, and we so pleased
to see this genial man whose leisure it is
to cleanse the woods of rude discards,
whose pleasure it is to delve deep and wide.
Mushrooms, we enthuse, are sprouting
everywhere - and a wide, conspiratorial grin
overtakes his generous features. "I know!"
he confides, almost bellowing with delight
though none but us, our little dogs and the
squirrels to note his pointed gesticulations.
So the edible treasures, bright and luscious,
remain his alone. Who else, after all, can
boast sufficient knowledge and boldness
of culinary purpose to unerringly identify
and disqualify those which threaten, after all?
"There's these hedgehog mushrooms I
gathered yesterday", he waxes eloquent, "and
they were fabulous! Got them home, fried
them up with onions, a dab of sour cream
when they were done - food fit for a monarch!"
His knapsack hung loose and empty on
his broad back. A good day for the hunt,
after days of unrelenting rain, and finally
the sun greets us on this cold, autumn day.
It's a fine day to be out in the woods, it is.
"This big old pine", he says, motioning to
the rugged tall sentinel that has greeted us for
decades, "won't last past next spring." And
we are dismayed with his prediction, but he
insists, he has measured the collapsing clay
banks, points to the birch and the oak that
have already succumbed, lying akimbo in
their bare death across the moiling creek.
Not so, we make bold to deny; it has years
yet left to go. He laughs knowingly: "One good
gust of winter wind when it's weighted with
snow..." We've lived longer than he, seen more,
experienced much, and refute his expertise.
He regards us thoughtfully, shrugs with a
resigned air of one whose credibility is
questioned, says he's off! Knows where there's
a new cache of mushrooms, of a type growing
as a shelf fungus, the colour of ripe melon,
needing to be picked right this very moment.
She is young and vivacious
though as a mother of two
young adults, not that young
in fact. Yet so much in life
is so obviously relative and to
the grey-haired woman beside
her, the pretty, charming
woman was young and
gregariously extroverted,
so much so that their brief
companionable proximity
serendipitously served in
its warmth to gift the elderly
woman with the sweet illusion
of herself, renewed in youth.
Fittingly, or not, the younger
woman wore casual exercise
pants and as the two ambled
side by side in the woods, the
legend, coyly, perkily appearing
on her derriere read, "Naughty".
Delighting her companion no end.
