Incurable
There are vast legions among us
afflicted with the conceit of vanity
and in response to their incoherent
desire to become/remain/return to
youth and beauty the response offering
a solution is there with the avuncular
hubris of eager demi-gods prepared to
match conceit with deserved deceit. In
a desperate bid to remain visually
desirable, dewy-young and beautiful
the vulnerable flock to the salons of
plastic surgeons whose willingness to
serve those for whom no price is too
steep to trade for rejuvenation into
the cult of the young, the lithe and
the time-untouched remains boundless
with confidence and treacly assurances.
Not for them, who invest their purpose
in life to remain enticingly smooth
skinned and winsome, the symptoms
of fearful aging, the creased brow and
the mirth-creased mouth betraying a
life well lived. And those betraying
the healing profession expand their
horizons to entice the still-young with
flawlessly smooth faces of angelic
complexion to become 'proactive'
investing in costly treatments well
before the aging process arrives, to
ensure it never will. Some appear to
onlookers to have arrested time by
freezing expression while others have
the unmitigated misfortune to present as
some kind of chimera resembling neither
youth nor agedness but a sad caricature.
The Peaceable Kingdom
Was there ever such a fabled place?
Might there ever arise a time and a place
when and where the lion lies down with the
lamb? It is a vision of everlasting hope
that has humbled and haunted humankind
ever since the primitive mind sparked
thought that led imagination to arise that
survival's instinct to destroy anything or
anyone shielding the grasp from obtaining
advantage might be tempered by an
emerging conscience dictating toward
amicability beyond instinct and tribe.
The human heart reacts in swift sympathy
to the perceived plight of a vulnerable
and helpless young animal. Shrinking in
fear and distaste at the red in tooth and
claw reality nature imbues her creatures
with. Yet it remains the human creature
whose fearsome passions of violent rage
shrink the mind and threaten the peace.
From pre-historical times to the Biblical era
to the present, the dreaded loathsomeness
of fratricide, matricide, patricide and deicide
have haunted the poetic legendary tales of
human moral depravity. We fear the savagery
of wild, untamed beasts of the forest and
jungle, when all the while humans steeped
in the civility of the modern world are
the creatures whose predation on one
another present the true horror of existence.
Observably Puzzling
He strides with a purposeful air of
confidence, swooping long legs over
the terrain meant for such locomotion,
his manner a tight grip on indifference
brusquely untainted by social graces
that might dictate he casually address
the appearance of others. It seems more
than obvious that the presence of the
petite woman happy to spread the
largess of her kindly personality has
done nothing to sweeten his own. She
on the other hand, follows him adoringly
as though fulfilling the role of a medieval
paid retainer to follow in the footsteps
of a nobleman. That he is a man is beyond
denial, that there lingers an aura of
nobility does have a certain deniability.
Which leads one to wonder how it is
that nature seems to have a particular
flair for pairing such diverse types, the
fellow pumping his legs with such fervour
to swiftly distance him from distasteful
communion with others, the woman
dutifully tripling her outsize treads to
match his progress, her manner tinged
with an implied regret aimed at passersby
yet plumped with pride this is her man.
Ding Dong ↓ Dead
What a remarkable personage the
world now bids a hearty farewell to
venerated by many and detested by
so many more. He was a man of
passionate belief, an indomitable
personality, the courage of his very
own convictions, a benevolent
dictator to those who adored him
a totalitarian murderer to those who
escaped his clutches, in memory of
those who did not. When viewed
from the perspective of his own
country alone, he was a resounding
success for the half-century he ruled,
a reality that led some to emulate him
but never with the success he had no
trouble realizing. Even the democratically
elected head of a large developed nation
fancying himself a social progressive
of considerable note and success waxed
poetic in addressing the misfortune the
world faces with the departure of his
hero whom he lauds as one-of-a-kind
a description which, in isolation of
the baggage trailing in his wake
elicits sighs of relief and the hope that
his kind will not be met again in this
lifetime of those whose suffering
he had been the proud instigator of.
THE FATHER THE SON
They lean muscle and sinew
into their work
minds free to wander
tongues hanging silent
in the roofs of their mouths.
Companions they find comfort
in close presence
each teacher to the other
wordlessly
carefully
full of care for the moment.
They are masters of the mind
but yet lovers of hand's efforts
they dexterously play ideas
one on the other
casually
cut wood to fit delineated form
and and smooth
shave and stain
two jacks of variable trades.
For All I Know
For all I know, the spirit of my garden
a gentle and accommodating muse
faithful to the ardent fulfillment of my
gardener's wishes during the days of bloom
may feel betrayed and neglected left
to fend for herself as winter approaches
for even hearts of stone may be vulnerable
to winter's mercilessly icy grip and her
abandonment within the garden put to
rest may elicit resentment for all I know.
She now wears a white mantle of snow
a diadem to match, with snowy boots
ill-fitting her loose Grecian garment of
timeless grace. Beside her, not quite
a companion but in close proximity
sits her grimacing and leering adversary
the gargoyle whose function it is to
defend the interior of the house, and
whose heart is obliviously immune to
the cold, for his is a heart not only of
stone, but black as Hades itself while hers
radiates the goodness of Elysian Fields.
Surrounded by Beauty
It is, to say the least, instructive
how a reluctant but necessary tryst
with a cutting-edge heart surgeon
focuses the mind on the possibility
of the Dark Angel paying an unneeded
call, but the mind in stress does habitually
linger on such untoward occurrences.
On the other hand, an assignation of
that stern calibre of existentialism also
guides the mind toward a rejection of
the petty and the embrace of meaning
in life. From that experience rises an
acute appreciation of all we normally
take for granted, magnifying the beauty
that surrounds us and our opportunities
to bask in what nature has given us.
So that yes, the sight and sound of a
bird, the colours of autumn and the
dazzling splendour of winter's embrace
are newly recognized for what they
represent. Even shopping forays to
view and to bring home to the pantry
glowingly colourful fruits and their
vegetable partners become a happy
conspiracy between us, my dear, as a
reaffirmation that life well lived is a
reward for a life well lived, together.
Portrait in Sepia Tint
How perfectly quaint, my dear, how
very quaint this tableau in which we
feature, you and I together, arm in arm
toddling down a suburban street. It is
the street on which we live, there is our
house and there the homes of our very
good neighbours. And there are we,
carefully garbed against the arrival of
winter's first snowfall, booted, gloved
and securely jacketed against winter's
icy blasts which follow us down the
street, across a main street, up another
neighbourhood street, leaning together
against the unfriendly thrust of an urgent
wind on this nature-soured day of icy
cold and darkly overcast sky. We walk
arm in arm as the elderly do: I repeat
how very quaint that we two who have
always stood out among our peers in
years, robust and independent agents
of our well-being, now guiding and
leaning one on the other, neither leading
both perambulating as we have in the
past seen the elderly in their slow and
laboured passage perform the function
of moving their laboured footsteps from
point A to B. Ours is but temporary, a
setback in routine soon to be corrected
for though we are indeed elderly we are
absolutely and utterly without intention
to be hobbled by those years that bind
us to our shared mortality, you and I.
Observe, as we progress, how quaint.
Winter Express
Winter represents a combination of
elements demanding of our respectful
awareness. Like it or not, weather is
a reality of nature we ignore at our
peril. As much and as often as we
bask in the fine comfort of pleasant days
that set our moods of complacency
the counterpart events that impact our
perception of all around us can be
thought of as a stealth invader
mean-tempered and boding ill. A
presence that sends menacing fingers
of chill air deep within protective
layers meant to shield us from any
compromised pleasure in winter's
presence, as a nasty wind blasts icy
pellets at exposed faces and no number
of layered garments shield us in the
assaults of inclemency, our legs
sliding into falls as though helpfully
conspiring with the weather to be
amusing at the expense of our public
composure, our certainty of self control
as agents of our own well-being denied.
Perspective
The familiar has disappeared in the
most mysterious manner that their
comprehension challenges to make
sense of. An atmosphere and a landscape
suddenly different in sight, smell and
certainty for what they have encountered
is a far different world than the one
they have been accustomed to. It is as
though some agency has casually overlaid
their forest playground with a sparkling
white diaphanous veil of crisp frozen
crystals beckoning them to cavort
within the deep plushness of a coverlet
hiding from them what they know to
be there but somehow plunged deep
into unfamiliarity. They have become
infused with a sense of diabolical
playfulness, racing and romping and
challenging one another to the deepest
embrace of the newfallen snow now
clinging to their black hair; small
sibling dogs whose world has shed its
boring persona they know all too
tediously well, for one whose alternation
as a playful-poodle-specific forest deep
within a still-falling snow event has
awarded them the day's special prize.
Cathedral of White
It is a grand stage like none other
easily understood as a place of limitless
distractions, the setting peerless in its
design, the habitues, feathered, furred
and scaled, fascinating in their thespian
qualities of excellence. Vanity, a flair
for the dramatic and raw showmanship
are not exclusively human traits for we
come by them in the most natural of ways,
endowed by the universal mistress of
existence, space and time. The forest so
recently displayed itself in the gaudy
colours of autumn, all the golds and greens,
scarlet, orange and bronzes eliciting
!Ahs and !Ohs from her immense admiring
public. Boredom is yet another commonly
shared trait and so in a fit of spleen and
unseemly pique, chose to cast off the
splendour of vibrant colour. In its place
the glitz and glamour of an overstated
absence of colour with the overwhelming
presence of startling, dazzling, scintillating
white as the forest transformed itself into
a vast cathedral of brilliant hubristic light.
Timeline
The year that we met our lives together
began. We were fourteen, and together
exulted in doing all the things that young
people peering over the horizon into near
adulthood pictured themselves involved in
yet from the perspective of mere children
launched our future as holding hands
we went together to see films of the day
walked in leafy, sheltered urban parks
and talked endlessly about ourselves
about life, what little we had experienced
of it, knowing more through what we read
as omnivorous bookhounds, and yes, went
together to local libraries. Met with friends
and in groups went to beaches, watched
sports events, attended school plays, went
to endless community center dances
and spoke on the telephone to the grim
irritation of parents, eating up hours of
telephone lines and time. By the time we
reached seventeen, convinced life apart
would be no life at all, we window-shopped
for material goods that we would need to
set up our household, aggrieved that parents
failed to share our enthusiasm for an early
marriage. But when we were eighteen it
took place, not as we might have wished
and expressed by eloping, but as our parents
commanded, an elaborate planned affair
attended by people we barely knew, relieved
by the time the evening ended. Our first
child at 24, two more to follow closely
and life as we would know it presenting
itself in all the complex, dramatic, joyful
permutations we could never, ever imagine.
And nor could we imagine at that distant
time there would be another time far into
the future when we would look back in
disbelief at all those years, long passed.
Tonight's Menu
Ours might be construed by those
unfamiliar with the intimacy of
a long marriage, as a strange strategy.
It is a distinct reversal of the norm
where one considers a menu of
possibilities consulting one's taste
preferences and moods and makes
a suitable selection, enjoying the
fragrant aroma of the food as it is
presented with appropriate fanfare.
The ritual which we two share in
the intimate interior of our comfortable
home is one where my husband has
accustomed himself to appraising the
fragrance lingering in my hair to
inform himself what, precisely, he
will be faced with morning, noon
and evening for his appetite-stirring
delectation. Take this evening, as an
example; ginger-flavoured chicken
along with roasted cauliflower and
sauteed tomatoes, with a blueberry
pie for dessert. The morning menu
had been erased when, after a sun-laden
walk in the breezy woods nearby our
home, my hair took on the fragrance
of trees, rustling leaves, and trails
steeped in the muck of an evening
rain. By late afternoon, however, the
menu flavour was discernible via
deeply inhaled breath in very close
proximity warranting a hug and kiss.
Their World
Deer mice skidding crazy circles
within the rim of the unwashed frypan
all cutesy eyes and flashing feet, tail
faithfully whipping after before
we start the campfire and head
over to the lip of the lake to wash
up from our evening meal. Red
squirrels remark on our presence
tossing pine cones from above.
Sipping tea our heads raised to
the Milky Way, shooting stars zip
by. A last night-paddle on the dark
quiet lake, our canoe leaving bright
pearls in our wake under the
luminous moon, watching bats
skim the lake into the trees, tent
glowing at its distance illuminated
by the candle-lantern awaiting our
return, we soon hoist our food pack
high in the trees, then snugly warm
in sleeping bags within the tent
we wake to the whirr of mice sliding
happily down the tent fly, but it isn't
they who snuffle curiously then
waddle off. In the far distance
coyotes and wolves rend the dark
night with their prolonged chorus
carried throughout the forest by
the night wind. Before dawn grey
jays urge us to rise, more than
willing to share whatever can be
spared from our morning meal.
We are their guests, deep in the
fastness of the northern woods, far
and distant from the urban divide.
Captivating
We all have our issues and obsessions
private and sometimes not-so-hidden
idiosyncrasies; some but not all are
gender-specific yet others are not
even species-specific. Take my
little dog Jackie, his specialty is an
enthusiasm for licking feet, mine,
and you cannot take him for he is mine.
Jackie is fixated on my right foot and
associated toes, the left one can
languish, unlicked, as far as he is
concerned. And then there are those
men who seem to fall into a category
of seeing everything about them in
need of a good bash-in, when they've
a hammer handy. And there's me
of course me, since I'm writing this
after all. Camera in hand, and it is
always in hand, I see wherever I
happen to be enduring and fabulous
landscapes and objects and even
unaware people whose absolute need
to be captured in a photograph they
may not be aware of precisely, but
the fact is, captured they will be.
Displacing Nature
Over the decades that the urban forested
ravine, a prized natural landscape
whose geology ensures that no building
will take place there though existing
within a municipal environment of
nearby housing tracts, a succession of
beaver colonies has arisen, each one
dismantled, the beaver carried off to
areas where disgruntled citizens will not
complain of their presence. Latterly
the beaver have returned, built their
dams, one here, another there, and
have been busy stocking their lodges
with a pantry-full of winter forage, in
the process harvesting poplars like
there's no tomorrow, a species of tree
expendable, serving a good purpose as
far as the beavers are concerned. Each
day in succession more poplars, striplings
and mature alike, fall to their razor-sharp
teeth, the falls unerringly in the direction
of the waterway coursing through the
forested ravine. Evidence of their
industrious predation is seen in the
ubiquity of the glaring white stumps of
the heartwood in its cone-shaped death
agonies, splintering to the forest floor
awaiting dismemberment and usefulness.
Complaints abound among those clearly
resentful of nature's blueprint for survival
while among those appreciative of the very
presence of these creatures so close to
the unnatural world of civilization argue
for their preservation, the very symbol of
industry. Guess in which camp lie the teen
offspring whose favourite pasttime is to
destroy living nature wherever they encounter
it, snapping immature branches, pulling down
saplings, setting fires with the assembly of
tinder-dry woody detritus? Yet for the area
beaver there may be no tomorrow.
Night Garden
The garden at night is decidedly not
the same one we are familiar with
in the dazzling light of the sun
prim and innocent of dark mischief.
This nighttime garden, however, is
steeped in the mystery of strange sounds
and an unfamiliar odour where objects
thought inanimate appear to move
and a faint wailing and a gnashing alert
to the presence of peculiar omens of
the presence of a far different world
than the one the gardener carefully
tends to throughout daylight hours of
familiarity and fond aspirations in the
arcane belief that what results is a
reflection of the skill and patience of
the one who wields the spade. The
night garden informs otherwise, that
unknown emanations and the eerie
presence of unrecognized beings
take possession of the night and the
garden and woe betide the unwary
who venture where their presence is
unwanted and resented, whose senses
finally inform it is time to depart.
The Superior Species
We are under few illusions
respecting belief in the mastery
of humankind over other animal
species on this planet. Our two small
companions, on the other hand
harbour few illusions, they know
of a certainty that theirs is the
superior intellect, capable of
manipulating, cajoling, threatening
and outright charming their humans
into compliance. Their skills in
extracting advantage in every
conceivable way to satisfy their
every whim an object lesson in
humility as we observe their subtle
communication instinctively knowing
us as we hardly know ourselves.
They don't fall into the error of
belief that they are wholly dependent
on our good graces, knowing the
reverse to be true; we submit to
their spontaneous demands unable
to resist their good graces. Moreover
while we continually err in the
belief that outcomes will change
they unerringly recognize clues
to trigger sought-for responses and
push those buttons on impulse
or design, neither failing them.
At Twilight Time
Hush! What's that? Not to be
alarmed, it's only small feathered
creatures rustling in the trees, you
know, settling down for the night.
Hadn't you noticed the lengthening
shadows, the stealth entrance of
dusk hovering above the sun's
late-day illumination of the forest?
Amazing, isn't it, how swiftly the
light fails, we hardly begin to notice
it until the shadows evaporate and
light creeps away for the remainder
of the day while the dark of night
shifts into view and we wonder
where all the hours have gone. Look,
look up there, those clouds are now
completely overtaking the sun
loathe to retire, to sink below the
horizon, eager to continue its high
and mighty course across the sky
and it most certainly will do so
only visibly not on this side of
the equator as we spin on our axis
and slowly turn blinding ourselves.
Defoliation, Spoilation
Howling wildly through the forest
canopy, the climate-maddened
wind tears away remaining foliage,
littering the atmosphere with colourful
leaves resentfully leaving the perch
they have clung to, to densely mat
the forest floor. Twigs and branches
that have long hung themselves over
boughs, entangled in dry foliage have
now been persuaded to tumble below.
In thickets of now-barren poplars standing
on a promontory hulking above an
entrenched beaver colony, the saw-sharp
outlines of teeth nature designed for the
purpose circle stumps whose trunk
corpses straddle the intact branches
of other trees untouched by the
industrious creatures while countless
others lie akimbo at odd angles
awaiting eventual dismemberment
to line dams and winter forage storage.
Juncos and chickadees nervously flit
through the branches of pine and spruce
defiantly verdant in contrast to the dark
trunks of oak, maple, poplar, bass and
hawthorn surrendering to the monotone
of greys, deprived of their links with
warmth and sun and rain designed to
foster growth in the fullness of the
forest flora functioning as a haven for
birds and wildlife now withdrawing to
hibernate or migrate to southern climes.
Seasonal Instincts
Clear and cold, the night atmosphere
with that icy edge foretelling the
imminence of winter. The dark
dome of the sky a deep velvet
black with royal blue overtones
transitioned from a day of brilliant
sunshine coasting across a pale
cerulean sky to the grateful landscape
below, while above the silhouettes of
geese brazenly honking their way
south took advantage of long gusts
of wind, whereas under cover of
darkness the hazardous journey of
small and timid migrating songbirds
faintly trickle through the heavens.
Guided by the pale silver of a full
moon, night creatures prowl through
the deep coverlet of fallen foliage
resting on the forest floor. Above
can be seen the scintillation of
heavenly bodies, stars within the
constellation home to Earth and its
creatures bound to its magnetic
field knowing no other place but
this, devoted to the struggle for
survival, attuned to the seasons,
though the reasons elude their
animal sensibilities reacting purely
on inheritance of endowed instinct.
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| POTUS |
Grim, But Bear It
It does strain credulity doesn't it?
Places an untenable weight on one's
struggle to believe that there is surely
an equal number of people capable
of discerning value and quality
capability, intelligence and trustworthiness
to balance those who fall prey to the
promises of frauds portraying themselves
as White Knights capable of overturning
all the worrisome problems bedevilling
citizens finding their governments
oblivious to their most basic needs.
That out of a capitalist jungle of
swindlers and bankruptcy artists could
erupt a brash, swashbuckling circus
barker corrupt to the core whose hubris
reflects the confidence conman whose
vast financial gains made of him a
celebrity, vowing to the discontented
and bewildered that he would deliver
them from the land of naught to the
paradise of plenty, exiling all those
hated politicians who fail to give heed to
their existential need -- who could foresee?
That this skilled necromancer could
manipulate and impress great swathes
of the population to cast out the old and
vote him into high office was a matter of
laughing disbelief, until it happened and
laughter turned to tears. Do not despair
ye of broken faith, for this too shall pass.
