Loved, and Gone

From the moment that tiny
black dog with the hesitant
manner entered our lives all those
years ago, we loved her and she
loved us right back. When she
left us nineteen years later it was
sheer desolation, and we imagined
glimpsing her small dark form as
a shadow slipping around the corner
of rooms in the house where she
lingered with us through all those
years. Shy and joyful as a puppy
clever and companionable
as she matured, her loss was a
devastation. Some, not knowing 
better, might feel we sought to 
replace her with two doppelgangers
black siblings with an uncanny 
physical resemblance to the 
irreplaceable one; personalities
not remotely like hers, nor is 
the bond that we share now a 
reflection of the one that existed 
between us all those years ago. 
Each of these relationships must 
stand on their own idiosyncratic 
merits, and though much time has 
passed we miss her yet. We do not 
recognize our long-lost companion 
in those who now share our lives.

Mona Lisa

You tell her how good it is to see her
again, since you knew her back when
she juggled with a juvenile-arrested
husband mired in a perpetual scowl
relieved by the presence of an
emotional, emotive dog with an
oddly crooked tail desperately in
need of hugs her husband shrugged
off. When her children, one, two
three, were born that dog still
elicited her concern and love, spread
now generously to embrace five
needy souls. This lovely woman,
remember, forever smiled wanly yet
genuinely engaged in love and life.
You believed the marriage hadn't a
chance, admired her as a perfect
mother and dog-lover whose endless
patience, saddled with four teen-aged
temperaments, one of whom fathered
her children, she nonetheless
persevered with and pampered to
preserve his fragile psyche. Her
oldest daughter, now 19, fled
higher learning in favour of serving
tables at Whistler and a way of
life that appealed to her imagination.
But your friend smiles indulgently
satisfied her daughter will learn
and prosper, doting now on a diminished
family, surprisingly still including
the father of her children, two of
whom appear inclined to her
generous nature and view of life.

 

Spring Paean

Pileated woodpeckers call
raucously through the forest
abandoning one tree for another
prospecting their opportunities
thrumming and drumming
as copious chips of long
slivers of bark surrender to
the voracious bird's assault
detach and flick from trunk to
the snowed-in forest floor
in search of beetle larvae. 
Crows mob frantically far
in the distance, their hysterical
orchestration symbolic of 
conflict as they circle and emote
fury at the presence of an owl
impervious to the noisy assault
serenely indisposed to locate
elsewhere, enraging the crows.
Chickadees flock and flit
across tree branches and within
the inner network shadowed by 
nuthatches, all reacting to
the warming sun of spring
and the inevitable melt of the
seasons' snowpack. Crimson
streaks fly gracefully among
firs and spruce, as vibrant song
bursts from cardinals' timeless
spring repertoire of exquisite
melodies in their spring paean.

 

Cycling, Recycling

As feathered forest creatures
of distinction, he is undeniably
the king of all he surveys
with no challengers for the crown
as nature's undisputed caretaker
surveying the forest canopy to
identify lost giants harbouring
infestations of boring beetles
whose survival and linked
perpetuation equates with the
climax of a tree's living days.
The chickadees, nuthatches and
vibrantly-hued cardinals and
bluejays are the adornments
of the forest landscape, charming
and invested with the grace notes
of enchanting melodies, in
contrast to the authority vested
in the loud, assertive call of the
pileated woodpecker, the species
that dominates the woods, 
feasts on burrowing beetle larvae 
maintaining the ecosystem's
checks and balances, enabling the
forest to thrive as saplings grow
replacing their venerable forbears.

Conversation

Neither introvert nor extrovert
I have never made an effort
to avoid communicating
with others, although on
occasion brevity is best when
faced with those whose interests
fail to expand beyond themselves
and then one begins with a
'hello' with the intention of
considering that a sufficiently
expansive statement suiting
the occasion. On the other hand
much can be gained in the 
serendipity of encountering
those whose ease of expression
and warmth of humour warrants
attention as they launch into
a narrative whose line ranks
right up there with the fascination
inherent in reading a good book.
Courtesy in communication is a
given, of course, one whose
response can lead to patient
torment when the innocent 
enquiry leads to an agonizingly
protracted description of health
gone awry. And there are times
when the subject of a discussion
is a mutual acquaintance whose
privacy has been breached
so that when you finally part
with the sense that you'd far
rather not have known, leaving
you harbouring a lesser opinion
of the tattler, it is also with the
certainty that whatever you may
in an unguarded moment have
divulged of your own personal
weakness of character, it is
destined to be embroidered in
malice the better to ingratiate
himself with others avidly
receptive of denigrating opinion
absolutely unlike yourself.

 

Pandemonium

The scene a well-tramped
forest pathway deep 
in a winter season 
of snow and ice, a place 
of nature beloved 
of dogs and humans
alike attracted to the 
freedom inherent in 
the very notion of tracking 
nature's changing sets
in the theatre she holds 
most dear. A burst 
of sudden movement 
and with flapping ears 
and flying legs a melee 
of dogs, young and old
large and small

a variety of breeds, all 
invested in cavorting, 
challenging, grappling
chasing, and barking
create a frisson of excitement 
alerting even the foxes in 
their dens who will venture
out only  once the frenzy
subsides lest they become the 
the object of the chase.

 

Lilly

Dignified and sedate
as befits a Queen among
her breed, she moves with
grace and majesty through the
forest her presence taking on
the hue of the overwhelming
presence of winter in the
landscape, a picture of
perfection in white-on-white
her statuesque form a
perfection of conformation
serene in her place
knowing herself as a
calm presence whose
appearance raises admiration
and confidence that in her
presence nothing can go
awry, her very stillness
the assurance that this
steadfast creature of
nature's striving for perfection
represents a hallmark of
her creator's finesse. 

Expiration Date

The pewter vault of the sky
clamped over the land
is impervious to the
futile claim of the
Spring Equinox
that it has arrived and
courteously invited spring
to make its long-awaited
appearance. In a display of
hubristic entitlement
a snowstorm is unleashed
its burden of wildly
tumbling snow clasps
the environment in
brilliant white, the
evanescent brightness of
snow varnishing the
landscape with its frozen
monopolistic splendour
as spring civilly awaits the
finalization of winter's
lease on its superannuated
and oh so very cranky season.

Here Am I!

His is a significant presence
one which does not go unnoticed
for the man is a towering figure
looming in height over all others.
A man genial of character and
well taken by all those others
upon whom he occasions to
cross, some of whom know
him well enough to know how
fond he is of his great basso
profundo, thundering like
Thor's off the side of a mountain.
He is affable and a man of action.
One who confides that
he knows the experience of
heart failure so massive that
frantic doctors barely managed to
revive his departing heart. He is
also prone to exaggeration; hardly
to be criticized, however
since nature with her inimitable
sense of irony made of him a
gross exaggeration of a man.

 

The Lost Man

The features of this man's face
only partially hidden by the faux
fur of the hood surrounding it
identify him as Inuit. The hood, its
fur and the entire garment coloured
bright red, flaming against the
grey of his environment. He is
propped against a grey stone building
seated on a grey pavement, bits of
ice and snow lingering still, the
wind brisk and the air cold. All
elements familiar to him but not
perhaps the landscape. His forbears
lived in a sparkling, dramatic 
white arras where penetrating cold
and blustery winds described their
terrain. There ice huts sheltered
them from the elements and
hunting of the wild beasts that
shared the landscape sustained 
their existence; food derived from
Polar bears, seals and caribou
providing shelter and clothing as
well. Here, in the eastern Canadian
city where the man has migrated
the environment is hostile to his
existence, and he sits humbly 
within its sterility of opportunity
among hurrying crowds of city
dwellers, unnoticed and ignored
begging for change to feed a habit
lacking synchronicity with heritage.

 

Spring! Really?

So nice of you to drop by. Welcome
to the neighbourhood. You've
been expected. We can hardly
believe how long we have
awaited your arrival, and
finally you're here. Your
presence, I assure you, very much
appreciated. Please forgive 
the mess everywhere. You know
the snow-and-ice-packs
accumulated over winter; they
just don't want to go. And so
we put up with the visual blight
transformed from the lofty
fluffed piles of snow that once
so delighted us. Hoping that
your entrance will be
sufficiently persuasive, assuming
you mean to stay awhile, to
ensure that all that degraded ice
and the crusty snow hiding very
rude deposits will go before long.
Please excuse the presumption
but is that not your intention?

Psychosis

It is nothing less than exhausting
to contemplate the prodigious
energy that is required to
build up enough rancour,
spleen, venom, call it what
you will, to make the case
to oneself to commit to hatred.
Mystery of mysteries
what drives the distemper
of such emotions when the
end result is the complete
diminishing of the hater's
humanity? The wasted passion
the corrosion of one's inner
core, the bitter spew that
results, how elevating is
that of life's promise to
ennoble the human spirit? It
does, after all, represent a
choice, and for those to whom
the choice to hate and to suffocate
the guidance of do unto others
brought intact down the echoing
corridors of the ages, ignored
by the predilection to detest
to slander and to harm in the
final analysis harm comes to them.


 

 

Release

Snow yet covers the ground
but the atmosphere is no longer
frozen for it has become
crisply tolerable as it
touches our faces no
longer threatening frostbite
but gently whispering the
exquisite promise of spring.
The air sparkles with light
sun beaming its golden rays
upon the landscape where
chickadees and nuthatches
flit from tree to tree and
cardinals perched bright scarlet
warble their peerless melodies
to greet the season. People feel
suddenly freed from a burden of
cloistering overwinter, free
at last to wander among the
trees shedding ice and snow. 
Dusk now creeps its crepuscular 
presence while day turns to night   
more tardily as the Spring Equinox
hovers, winter grudgingly
taking its time to depart

Love's Whimsy

Pensively, lovingly you clasp
my hand in yours, warm and large
placing both over your heart and I
lay my head on your chest. You
reach your cheek down to mine
then gently, as the music plays
guide me effortlessly to the
dance. Our bodies linked
in the harmony of warmth and
love we sway and we glide
the grace of your movement
leading me on as we recognize
one song after another of our
youth. It is said that thoughts are
electrical impulses that pulse
forever through the atmosphere. The
infinity of space within our minds
and the timeless space endlessly
reaching beyond our place on
Earth into the expanding universe
if that is so must resound with our
thoughts and intimate details of
our lives together as one. What
must those whose advanced
science picks up these shreds and
threads of our existence think?

Identity

This is a blunt force
instrument as clear in its
all-encompassing intent
as it is in the direction
implicit upon its
faithful to achieve its goal.
This is an ideology that
smothers personal liberty
whose faithful have
recourse to free will
as long as it is fully
understood that central
first and forever their
self-sacrificial destiny
lies in unerring and
unswerving loyalty to the
overweening belief their
souls are owned by the
spirit that moves them to
allegiance, spurning all
other possible contenders.
This is a worldwide
community of believers whose
sensitivities are anchored
in a collection of inspired
directions they hold sacred
and whose heavenly reign
extends into eternity where
they will be rewarded in the
fullness of time with everlasting
Paradisaical existence while
for those they failed to convince
lack of acceptance merits
their death as the divine has
ordained it; the mass of
erring humanity that has
resisted the persuasive call
will swelter helplessly in the
fires of Hell, pleading for
the release of death.

Revolt

It's an old seasonal conspiracy
where Nature and winter
conspire to make the
Ides of March
truly special, turning the
day into one endless
late-winter confusion of
blustery wind and copious
snowfall causing havoc
everywhere, Old Man Winter
shaking his fist at the
insult of impending spring
invited to enter despite
his protest that he'd only
just begun to roil the atmosphere
and how unfair it all was
and we'd have to gulp our
dismay and in the process
learn how well humility
suits us. They forgot, though
to alert the sun who hastened to
order his servant Apollo to
park his chariot right there
plunk in the middle of that 
great blue sea capping the world
heating up the discussion
and melting the snow
so spring could enter stage left.

Misfiled

In the still hours of the night
when darkness reigns
my mind was so suddenly
alight with ideas and
words crowding
my somnolent thoughts
I realized I was writing
the finest poem I had ever
conceived and felt
so completely triumphant
knowing there was no
need to alter one syllable
for the finished product
was superb. So confident
was I that once it was embellished
further while fully awake
it was tucked away safely
in that memory bank
where we dredge up what we
need so casually dependent
on the clarity our brains
bring to such ephemera. But
somehow it has all managed
to evaporate from my full
consciousness. The poem
destined to represent the
fine maturity of my vision
has decamped, dissolved into
the blank slate my memory
has suddenly lurched toward.

Happy Returns

Return on investment is a concept
that not too many find difficult to
digest. Couple that with another 
presenting no problems whatever to the
computer-savvy public, the standard
'garbage in, garbage out'. The two
linked make a statement sturdy
enough to light a bulb in the dimmest
of minds. How about you get what you
pay for? In a social environment where
children's sensibilities are so frail
it has long become the custom to 
guide their egos to the firm understanding
they are unique and amazing individuals
upon whom Fortune will never fail
to smile. Convince them they must
never settle for good enough since
obviously it isn't good enough, and
because they're so special mountains
will move out of their way. They have
learned to appraise prospects to enhance
their aspirations by the quality they
bring to the effort of adopting them.
In the sphere of love never having been
taught that to give is to receive they
retain their love for themselves while
linking to another with whom they
couple. Perhaps they failed to notice
how their mother and their father
deferred to one another, that one
or the other interchangeably had no
problems making sacrifices in favour
of that covenant that brought them to
a marriage of long standing. Example
failed in its patterning proficiency
when the young neglected the test of
observing that love means valuing
the object of love over oneself, and in
so missing that beat failed the self.

Trumped!

What an extraordinarily remarkable
and talented man, deliberately 
presenting himself as a risible
visual treat, because everyone loves
a clown and his visage is so
disarmingly amusing. Yet it is his
deeper purpose behind that facade
to imbue in the great nation he leads
a rediscovered sense of purpose and
nobility, to pursue the great American
dream of a great nation dedicated to
world fraternity, obligated to the 
grace of avuncular yet occasionally
firm guidance to a world astray.
Who else would have been capable
of restoring to the world-weary, bored
population its respected past as a
guide to the perplexed and a haven
for the persecuted? This is a man of
charming guile knowing his people
better than they know themselves
anticipating reaction to his uncouth
utterings and barbarian habits - oh, all
a show, not a window to his soul, you
see, who foresaw the result of his
presidency inciting to the public a return
to antecedents of resilience and trust
determination and pride, honouring
the strength of decency and purpose
gathering itself to denounce and to
resist the dictates of a pretender.

A Necessity of Life

Literature energizes the searching mind
teasing it to its own creativity. In
the absence of books there is unmindful
sterility. Language entices, it expands
vocabulary and vision. It becomes a 
inspirational landscape for the brain 
searching for enticement. A library 
represents the landscape of excitement, 
one to be explored with passion and 
dedication. From one soul's creative 
genius to the hungry perusal of the next, 
humankind indulges itself in the 
fascination of stories to be shared, 
luxuriated within, cherished and preserved. 
Without books the landscape of the mind
becomes a yawning exercise in vacuity
a passive, disinterested scene where
ennui becomes master. Life limits
itself to a vapid desolation devoid of 
drama and interest, the crises of humanity 
and the triumphs of the spirit unexplored.

Our Affair

You smile, draw me into your
arms with ease, hug me to your chest
and move with me to the music that
plays in fond remembrance of our
young years together, swaying and
clinging to one another measuring
step for step in the graciousness of
dance. This is our private, oh so
intimate link to the past, the music
playing down the corridor of memory
as we hug and we feel the warmth
coursing through from each to the
other. You hum and I softly sing the
words we recall so easily, plumbed
from the depths of those early times
and if I forget you remember to share
and on we dance, guided by a gossamer
delicate thread of time coursing
between us. The length of my form
fitting yours, the electricity of your
touch on my hip, my back, my waist
never failing its message, my love.

Restoring the Nest

Household alert: feel left astray
because your offspring have grown
no longer needing your guidance
and home comforts, prepared to
face life as competent adults
leaving you to cope with the loss
still in your nurturance stage and
adrift, just look a little closer to
home. Their father is still there
and as the original emotional
attachment remains prepared to be
guided and nurtured and pampered
as only his long-time spouse knows
how. Invite him to accompany
you doing the supermarket shopping
filling up the shopping cart with
groceries; task him with looking
for freshness dates on products
teach him to handle produce for
freshness. Then wait for that flood
of nostalgia to wash over you when
you unpack it all once home and
discover all the sugar-salt-fat-laden
items he's managed to sneak into
the cart when you weren't paying
attention. Sigh with satisfaction that
life has now returned to normal.

Overhead

When they were young
and always underfoot
they were encouraged
to entertain playmates
in their very own rooms.

     All that noise
     the childish exuberance
     sheer zest for life
     made their parents
     nervous and upset.

Now that the young
are grown and become
nubile they entertain
playmates in those
very same rooms

     upsetting their parents
     making them nervous
     straining to hear
     some reassuring sound
     from the bedroom overhead.

International What?

It was fated through no deliberate
choice of my own that my birth
as a female would result in
sharing and celebrating life with
my eternal counterpart born a
male, enabling us to discover one
another while barely free of
childhood, advancing toward our
destiny as man and woman
dedicated to life inseparable to
forge a future in a spontaneous
tandem of adventure and expression
sharing thoughts and emotions
struggles and disappointments, a
family, travelling the world 
entrenched in mutual delight with 
life in all its manifest opportunities.
The immutable gender traits 
alongside those transcending mere 
gender. Grateful I am to be a 
woman, grateful that he is a man. 
Puzzled am I that the world 
proclaims a day dedicated to 
international womanhood as
though fulfilling a need to 
applaud women leads to pride in
accomplishment as a state that 
women themselves cannot achieve 
without that courtesy. For I am
woman complementing man.


 

 

If...When...Who

If nature's inventive curiosity
created humankind with a bounty
of gifts such as free will and the
capacity to reason, balanced by
pathogens afflicting the soul and
the mind affixed to the passion for
survival, who will judge the final
analysis of failure or success
and by what criteria? Will
Survival of the Fittest be the
determining characteristic by 
which humankind distinguishes
itself, in the rejection of moderation
leading inevitably and invariably
to never-ending conflicts, grasping
jealousy of territorial advantage?
Nature, stepping in from time to
time to advance the narrative from
uncertainty to finality, throws in
the scourges of disease, drought
firestorms and hurricanes, leavened
with earthquakes and volcanic
action, a drama transfixing rapt
attention, whereupon the wagers begin.
Are we entitled to wonder with
whom her entertainment is shared?