In The Forest

Gone are the beaver who once pooled
the forest stream and now it trickles steadily
to the great river beyond. The dimness of
the forest interior backlit by its movable
curtain of green reflects stands of oak
and beech, maple and birch newly leafed
to once again compete with pine, spruce
and hemlock in fulfilling nature's purpose
a crowded, thriving haven for wildlife
where the solitude and stillness but for
wind howling through the forest canopy
offers shelter even from the pelting rain
to bluejays, blackbirds and crows soon
to rest for the night while nighthawks
take their place cruising the dusk-laden
atmosphere. Nesting pairs of hawks and
flycatchers returning each spring to the
woodland fulfill their purpose in existence
as the cycle of return and rebirth grinds on
just as fungi erupt from the leafmass aged
humus on the forest floor where bracken 
curve their graceful plumes and wildflowers 
beckon bees and mayflies, Damselflies and
Dragonflies litter the atmosphere in their
perfect dance of rapacious rapture busy
in their assignment as the ongoing saga
of the natural world's blueprint decrees.

Peaceable Prevention

Make no mistake, the time-honoured 
profession that stands heads and shoulders
above all others, requires dignity, creativity
craftsmanship and intelligence far beyond
the striving of pale imitations whose forays
into the field are forever destined to failure.
The ultimate practitioner of the arcane art
of diplomacy is one who musters a high
degree of craftsmanship, capable of endowing
statements with a subliminal message of
indisputable effectiveness, that wisdom
will prevail to discover an approach
agreeable to all parties of a dispute would
they but set aside petty aspirations in the
greater interests of world peace, finding
all parties involved theoretically agreeable
yet antagonistic to suggestions that others
can step in to dominate the conversation
undercutting their nation's conspiracy to
wield global power of a magnitude threatening
to void the empty rhetoric of those suspected
of plotting similar actions, prepared to wait
until their armouries are sufficiently prepared
to mount their own offences for among
these astute purveyors of cautionary advice
there are few naive enough to take on trust
the anodyne blandishments meant to disarm
intent to prevail in the diplomatic world of
aristocratic deftness of purveying the 
falsity of assurances devoid of reality.

Back to Basics

Our primitive past remains alive and well
in the tribal instincts it evokes within the
subconscious wellsprings of those clinging
to ancient ritual, none so virulently raw
as vengeance and the drive to restore honour
equated with all humanly virtues despite that
restoration's primary requirement is hounding
threatening and committing bloody slaughter
to slake the ravening monster residing within
the minds and traditions that call upon the
reputedly wronged to right the tribal insult
and thus normalcy in socially mandated
violence to satisfy the rituals of religious
devotion to a wrathful, jealous god whose
lightning strikes of lethal force set the standard
for believers who invoke the sacred name of
the almighty under whose banner they commit
atrocities whose purpose is to restore the
balance residing in the tribal pathology of
deadly commitment to destruction and
blood-letting recalling the dimly shrouded
past when survival equated with destroying
competition for scarce natural commodities
to secure life and deny it one's enemies.

In Due Time

She had a profession when she met him.
She had been an Army brat, so in practical
terms she had a fairly good idea that some
people were misfits in society. Not social
deviants of course but unable to 'fit in', as
she did, with her generous smile and easy
manner, yet something she could hardly
define attracted her to him. Their daughter
a social butterfly like her mother, left home
soon as she could. Their son, inclined to
silence and as entitled in  his demands as
his father finds it convenient to live at home.
She confided to a friend how conflicted she
was about her husband's retirement. On the
one hand she would no longer have to do 
all those household chores normally done
by menfolk; retired he could take that helm.
On the other his constant presence would
stultify her freedom beyond the accustomed
denials forbidding her to embark on any
initiative without consulting him. But he
is now retired and by all exterior measures
all is calm. Her devotion to her garden has
fallen by the wayside, their home front has
the appearance of neglect. She spends her
days fairly confined to its interior alongside
him. They have no pets, so when he is
truly irked with her he cannot provoke her
by ill-treating an animal. Running the 
power mower directly through the neglect
resistant gardens effectively denies her the
pleasure of celebrating seasonal blooms.
Most certainly the bloom that led her to
believe patience and tolerance and love 
would result in a lasting companionship of
mutual respect and comfort, has failed.

Syria to UN Rescue!

There are certain specific non-negotiable
primary qualifications to be met before
any aspirant can rise to these prestigious
positions within the world body of aggregate
representatives of the world order of nations
and dedication, deliberation, experience and
reputation are high among them. This
winning candidate certainly qualifies in all
respects, since its president has an unqualified
reputation of notoriety, for there are not many
totalitarian tyrants known for the ferocity
with which they mount deadly attacks upon
their own civilians as this one has, with
experience in the use of weapons of mass
destruction among them barrel bombs and
noxious lethal chemicals, much less the ancient
tried-and-true expedient long known to 
conscienceless dictators of siege warfare where 
privation and starvation become very effective 
weapons indeed. So the United Nations has 
picked a veritable winner for the role open to 
preside over the Conference of Disarmament 
in those hallowed halls dedicated to the 
preservation of peace and equality among
peoples. They now await recognition of the
sterling work they embark upon to meet
those sacred humanitarian ends: kindly now
stand and applaud the Syrian Arab Republic!

 

Ah, Visitors!

They make themselves right at home
and they're welcome to. Our ritual of
daily offerings appeals to birds, squirrels
rabbits and raccoons, residents of the
natural parts of our neighbourhood and
viewed by us as the elegant and much
admired upper-class portion we aspire
to friendly relations with. They appear
to reciprocate, recognizing in our little
household a kindred spirit of live and
let live. This, despite two little resident
dogs who upon sight launch into grim
paroxysms of ill temper at perceived
rival invaders of their territory. And nor 
utter the words of ready recognition
such as "look!", or "see", or "squirrel"
before the little hellions squawk and 
bellow their hollow threats so well
interpreted  by the objects of their
ill-tempered warning that here live
two irrepressible little spoil-sports whose
presence our visitors wisely ignore.

 

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Trust me, it's as readily done as said for
you can indeed leave one world behind you
while entering another and the journey is
well worthwhile, one that can be embarked
upon at leisure for the pleasure that can be
encountered in this place where once your
spirit did roam and the primal memory
etched deep within your subconscious to be
re-awakened at will or remain obliviously
unheeded. When the subtle challenge is
met that alternate world can be recognized
for the variant exposures it flaunts with
grandiloquent pride, while in one of its
multitude of guises currently available
it is a lush verdant comforter of the soul
that embraces, compassionately surrounding
the entrant in living green, softly textured
and aromatic of the countless intriguing
flora that comprise its existence and your
flight from the present greets you with
the lilting presence of wildflowers and
flowering trees and shrubs renascent on
the forest floor, soothing emotions that
engulf within that other world that simply
melt into nothingness in the natural setting
of a green welcoming otherwordly forest.

What is Love?

Sixty years ago we were the talk of
the neighbourhood, people asking one
another where were our parents? Two
skinny young kids moved into the house
and no one sighted the adults until finally
the question was asked of us directly and
puzzled though we were, we responded
well, we were the adults married three
years before moving into our first modest
little house. Two years later the first of
our children joined us and then another
two and perhaps by then no one thought
of us as juveniles pretending to be adults.
We're alone together now, no children to
share the house with, instead two little
dogs who keep us busy and involved
with close family life. No one in this
neighbourhood asks where our children
are since we no longer resemble youth
though we remain 'young for our age'.
We laughed back then when everyone
took us for brother and sister, and now
after all these years together when we
laughed through life our devotion to our
union somehow led us to resemble one
another, an amusing transformation in
response to which we're still laughing. 

one another
siblings 

Suicide vs Terrorism

It was his prized possession, his to have
and to hold until its weight convinced him
to surrender it, of his own free will for he
knew who coveted what he no longer prized
and prepared to gift it to that dread entity
called Malak Al Mawt. Dread only in the sense
of that angel's supreme power over all living
organisms, for the Angel of Death held no
dread in his mind. And so it was that pilot
Zaharie Ahmad Shah conspired to generously
confer upon that angel not only his own but
the lives of 239 unaware others  who would 
never know that booking flight on Malaysia 
Airlines Flight MH370 was their passage to
the feared unknown, that bleak, brief and
harrowing route to darkness and oblivion.
Passengers imbued with the faith of the
expected not the unexpected but sharing a
faith with the suicidist so generously disposing
of their existence perhaps wanting company
on his way to martyrdom bringing a gift 
comprised of so many souls anticipating the
praise that would greet him as a purveyor
of souls to worship at the feet of the Almighty.
In the controversy over elements of the assumed
trajectory of events leading to the disappearance
of a jetliner soaring high above the clouds
and the vast isolated reaches of the Indian
Ocean that proved so tragic to a network of
grieving families traumatized by their
unspeakable loss, have authorities yet
determined this was an act of terrorism?

The Social Deviant

Could be, I suppose, you tend to be on a
scale of sociopathy around six at least or
perhaps your attitude can be attributed to
other causation, since you are, after all
let's face it: old. A little tinge of cynicism
burrows its way into your mind now and
again. I mean let's face it, everyone and I
surely do mean the entire world has been
transfixed with anticipation, the excitement
and admiration that true love elicits, but
evidently not you. What's that? true love
has nothing to do with it? It is the unbridled
fixation, the adulation that celebrity, that
royalty, even though they may be in fact
personal nonentities elicit in the enthusiasm
of onlookers, otherwise sane people who
cannot bring themselves to acknowledge
that the universal subconscious need among
us all to love and be loved in return is
everywhere and we ignore it to our peril.
But to lavish praise and attention on two
otherwise unremarkable people buoyed
by the fact that one is royal and the other
biracial is stiflingly boring for what is it
that elevates them above all others but
the consuming magnetism of a class
system outdated and stagnant. Worse
the propensity of the public at large to
embrace hollow status, imbuing it with
meaning when they and the institution that
so entrances them is but a shallow intrigue
to distinguish a supposed aristocracy from
pedestrian nothingness of everyone else.

Trading Lives For Profit

Conscience? Moral outrage? Finger-pointing
and indignation? Oh, it's there on fine display
with generous conscientious helpings of
sanctimonious rejection of a well-considered
reaction on the part of a collegial fellow
democracy to shield its population from the
viral and vicious antagonism that celebrates
mass murder as 'resistance' on delivery by a
designated terrorist group for whom strange
sympathy is evinced because its target is one
that stirs ancient recriminations against the
world's wandering tribe of exiles so recently
reconciled with its ancient homeland to the
unfortunate detriment of those who settled
there corrosively describing returning Jews 
as 'settlers' whose claim to heritage is
false and misleading in their campaign to
harness the world's deep-seated discontent
that too many Jews survived extermination.
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, when one
murderous totalitarian government evaporates
another rises, and so it is that Western Europe
has risen to the allure of investment and trade
reaping treasured benefits dealing with the
Iranian ayatollahs complacent that god has
entitled them to persecute their own and fund
armed emissaries globally to plot to kill.
That their target of note is the Jewish state
arming Hamas to destroy it with weapons
attained from the profits gained in European
investment and trade reflects the profound
irony of damning Israel's disproportionate
defence of its people in damning thunder.

Phenomenon

It is a mysterious malaise, one suffered by
many people around the globe, and appears
to be seasonal. It begins with a light-headed
feeling, and feverish trembling as though
anticipating some event with the power to
transform, accompanied by chills and
eccentric tics that seem inexplicable
when formerly stolid men and women
accustomed to living normal lives in
normal times and comporting themselves
in mature and intelligent ways suddenly
begin babbling incoherently about weather
and the conjunction of the seasons in an
entirely unreasonable manner bringing
somewhat oafish smiles to otherwise
stern faces and unbecoming giggles
emanating from the mouths of people
ordinarily restrained in temperament now
dashing hither and yon to 'nurseries' dedicated
not to the newborn but to the mercantile
trade in exotic plants and trees and shrubs
shovels and spades, pitchforks and seed,
fertilizers and garden ornaments. It is as
though the world has gone mad, and indeed
perhaps it has; overtaken by gardener's 
fever compelling them to feverishly
fill garden planters even in the rain.

Farewell Little Nikon 

Oh how I valued its presence in my
life. It has been my constant companion.
Wherever I go, there it goes as well for
without it I would be lost. It enhances my
memory with its companionable presence
ensuring that what I regard with awe and
great admiration will never be forgotten.
If inanimate objects could have souls, its
was a companion to my own. It was a solace
providing me with an extension of my
own memory which can fail, but its ...
never! Imagine how devastating to lose
its presence and purpose. A delicate thing
it was, susceptible to harm though my
instincts had always been to protect it.
Alas, though it had never failed me, I
have failed that priceless instrument of
vibrant memory recall. Never again will
it colourfully and with breathtaking detail
document that which delights me and
which it faithfully stores for future recall.
Through an inadvertent and too-frequent
lapse my attention wandered leaving that
technological wonder to collide with an
immovable, unforgiving surface and its
prowess in capturing images to delight me
is no more. My fond memory of its 
faithful collaboration with those areas
of my life that matter will recall its value
but that too is sadly destined to fade.

Have a Good Day!

It has the potential to plunge one into a fuming
deep funk, all the news that is unfit to print
which inundates us daily, hourly and !this
just in! !!Breaking News!! when you read that
the morally unsalvageable UNSC has condemned 
Israel for taking desperate steps to protect its 
citizens from the malevolence of a terrorist 
group manipulating people it has steeped in 
misery to aid it in infiltration and chaos, when 
the DRC is battling a renewed outbreak of 
dread Ebola, when the Syrian regime has 
succeeded in taking yet more gains back 
from the rebels it names as terrorists fit only 
for slaughter which it obligingly does, when 
vile Islamist clerics preach to their faithful 
that universal Sharia is but a few years' 
distance, when areas of the world are coping 
with drought, floods, wildfires and crop failures
when totalitarian regimes prey on their captive
populations causing massive migration and 
privation. But rescue is at hand because it 
has been a beautiful day, warm and sunny
breezy and balming to the tired soul resting 
within you, when you hied yourself off to the 
spring woods for a leisurely stroll among 
the newly-leafed trees and took huge pleasure 
in seeing spring wildflowers in bloom, when 
a stranger alerted you that your credit card 
still sat in the cash machine and other strangers 
invited you to precede them in the checkout
because you had only one purchase, and they 
so pacifically smiled and so of course did you.

The Incumbent

Well of course I didn't vote for him, the man's
politics was not my brand, although it most
certainly was my husband's for few matters
divided us as did our choice of politics. No
matter, the politician I derided and spoke so
scathingly of revealed himself as he took up
the reigns of office and though utterly lacking
in charisma I soon discovered the breadth of
his intelligence, love of country, fairness and
decency rare among those of his breed and
decided when the next election came around
he had my vote, this man who shirked the
limelight, but never failed to enact policies
I applauded. Two terms at the helm gave him
the opportunity to give shape to a preferred
timely grooming of a nation whose economy
and values he greatly enhanced even while the
man himself bored the electorate. At the polls
that followed another man took his place and
another party won, its leader young, handsome
the scion of a previous leader, who promised
much and delivered nothing yet garnered
praise to match his conceit. All that his
esteemed predecessor had gained reversed
by a vain, inexperienced man lacking the
cognitive capacity to delve deeply into the roots
of problems, but quick to smile ingratiatingly
leaving admirers with the impression that he
had governing talents to place their trust in.
He stumbles his way through his mandate
secure in his own impression he can do no 
wrong though countless of his decisions are 
plainly ill-considered, placing the country in 
a distinct disadvantage on every level. And 
though I am glad I never voted for this imbecile
it offers faint balm to the wounds he zealously 
confers on the nation. A twist on that reliable 
old adage: You can please some of the people 
all of the time. Simply put, the qualities of
arrogance and stupidity has its defenders.

Hamas Credible - Israel?

Didn't you know? Mainstream media is
the only legitimate source for reliable 
as-it-happens news coverage. A fount of 
news and insightful reportage staffed by 
resourceful journalists geared by trade and 
by inner-sourced respect for truth and the need 
to ensure the public remains fully and well 
informed, challenged by the ubiquitous 
presence of reportage clearly subjective 
where objectivity is required so that the 
public's intelligence is not insulted by those 
who seek to score points for their preferred 
champions of justice. Social media reeks of 
blatant and erroneous, often deliberate 
misinformation verging on the thin edge of 
malevolence directed toward one or another
of the world's most beleaguered and mistrusted
actors, we are warned. Trust mainstream media 
as the sole source of unquestioned reality for 
we have their sincere word that all others 
play with our inherent decency in a collusion 
of misdirecting collective ire exemplified by
fake news sites. The very sites that swiftly
seek to correct all the swill promulgated
by respected media sources eager and
prepared to publish unchecked for any
degree of accuracy much less resemblance
to truth that groups wallowing in their
outraged sense of victimhood they alone
are responsible for, targeting Israel as an
unprincipled aggressor, slaughterer of
children whom the victims have groomed
to regard themselves as martyrs for their
cause of destroying Jewish lives and the
state that protects them. A narrative that
fascinates and attracts all the latent
anti-Semites glorying in the prospect that
their !breaking news! coverage serves to
slander the universally detested Jews.

Space Cookie

Lady, ever hear of basic shoppers' etiquette?
I know, I know, such transactions as filling
one's shopping cart with food demands
much of us, choices befuddle, prices astound
ingredients elude us, value is questionable
but because we must eat, therefore we are.
And there we were, a line of tired supermarket
shoppers awaiting their opportunity to unload
carts, pay the freight and get on with life.
And there you were -- mind if I ask? -- how
did you reach a half-century of existence
without becoming aware of others around you?
Totally oblivious you were to the long wait
you occasioned and the restless patience of
those behind you. Taking your sweet time to
perform simple tasks automatically demanded
to complete the shopping expedition. Whatever
went into the cart had to come out of it. Then
you know, placed on the treadmill, totted
up for a total to be paid, then packed and off
you go! Tedious it was awaiting your most
leisurely performance, rummaging in your
mind for the next step to satisfy your captive
audience. When I began packing you were
still at it. When I placed the bag meant for
the Food Bank on the shelf below that
conveyor belt and continued my packing
suddenly that bag wasn't there and you were
preparing to leave. Until I checked to see
you walking off with it and claimed it for
the Food Bank, depriving you of the mystery
contents of non-perishable food, Space Cookie!

Palestinian Justice

It becomes an effort for sane minds to begin
to envision a savage pathology so mired
in collective hatred that it incites an entire
population to spite itself in its greater
enterprise of placing blame in its self-imposed
culture of victimhood leading to its stark
embrace of death, a cultivation of martyrdom
taught to children from childhood to inspire
in them the highest calling demanded of
them as the generation of hope; one prepared
to surrender life in the greater aspiration of
their personal sacrifice heralding a new
dawn of national conquest. Not for any
of their generations can normalcy be
tolerated for theirs is an implacable
journey to seize that which has been lost.
There will be no surrender to the finer
human traits of compromise and sharing
in recognition that their demands have no
basis in justice for all. There is no space for
discussion and agreement leading to peace
in this mind-stunted pathology of all or
nothing in a people who will not accept
nothing and demand all they claim others
owe them while they owe others nothing.
A people who call themselves a nation, one
devoted to violent extremism determined to
destroy lives; if not others, then their own.

Where is Home?

Next year in Jerusalem the beloved lament
of a thousand years and another thousand
years had to happen at some time for it
was ordained that home is where the heart
is and that beating heart of a nation never
forsook its heritage and its collective memory
of a time before time returning finally as a
nation once despised and delivered by its
enemies to a world that viewed it with
suspicion and distrust in a widely circulated
diaspora where the heart yearned for home.
The anguish of its exile was a people's
dilemma one never forgotten, simply set
aside for an auspicious opportunity that
appeared never to arrive while in the interim
vast suffering and misery remained the lot
of the scattered remnants whose very
existence brought bloody pogroms and
expulsions anew. Resilient and determined
even they could not avert the final solution
that destroyed the greater part of its intolerable
existence. Their extermination served to grant
greater meaning to the need to return from
whence they had been exiled for Jerusalem
still awaited them while they awaited polite
and final permission from others to retake
what had been been wrenched from them.
And now that they had and reclaimed Judea
for Israel, a haven for its people their friends
and enemies alike deny them Jerusalem.

Perception

In a world where people go to great
lengths to elbow others out of their way
as they attain the heights of professional
celebrity, as an authentic practitioner of
the world's oldest profession, I take a wry
view of the acclaim vested in the artificiality
of celebrity and its worship for what does
it accomplish other than elevating yet
another nonentity through the pretext of
originality and talent that others strive
to emulate as they shriek in awe of the
degenerate culture degrading humanity.
As a housewife my accomplishments
over sixty years of married life interrupted
now and again by years of employment
in the world of business it was the state
of my home, my children's accomplishments
and my husband's companionship that I
valued. Now these aged hands knead
dough, cook meals, bake irresistible
temptations and share conversations and
long woodside walks with my husband
and our little dogs in the fullness of
nature and our growing maturity of years.
Those of our generation mirror our
varied experience and graduation toward
the future unlike the aimless, valueless
and tasteless generations that followed
and we can only express our sympathy
toward the endless vacuum we assume
their lives to be, incapable of distinguishing
priorities, of recognizing what truly
matters, languishing oblivious to the sad
emptiness of their lives and the vacuity
of their pointless aspirations, utterly sad.

Sunny Ways Idiocy

Of course it is most unfortunate and
can be of little comfort to you to remind
yourself that you never cast your ballot for
the man at the polls, when he becomes an
absurd embarrassment travelling abroad on
state visits, his self-reverential mannerisms
an affront to his hosts in his never-ending
mission to draw attention to his noted
exceptionalism, his youth, appearance and
of course his lack of experience in a
position as head of a country you are a
proud citizen of. His penchant for endless
photographic opportunities, his emotive
and tedious empathy for social variants
championing the rights of women, of
immigrants, Indigenous, LGBTQ2S+
in constant displays of sanctimonious
righteousness stale and rehearsed as befits
one to the stage born is worn and does
nothing to knit the fabric of society in a
cohesive whole; his firm insistence rather
a fracturing alienation withholding
public funding from any and all who defy
his injunction that everyone must worship at
the same altar he has made his own. His
grave disingenuousness not reflective of an
open mind in a learning curve but a very
special arrogance of believing he knows
what he does not. His pandering to an
audience known as a voting bloc of high
value and his strange fascination with
totalitarian governments for their envied
flexibility peculiar in one who values his
own progressive ideology leading him to
profess support in an alliance with those
whose agenda represents a dread threat
to the common weal in established and
well-supported democratic realities. If
any of these attributes relate to an
executive figure familiar to you, why then
you must by any account be Canadian!

Elderly Dissonance

Yes, yes I hear you. You hate hospitals.
You make that abundantly clear. Yes,
hospitals are for the ill and the elderly.
Yes, people who gravitate there are often
gravely ill and they shed toxins. Yes,
hospitals are playgrounds for viruses and
germs, yes they are. Yes, the atmosphere
is oppressively depressing ... all those
doddering, wan, shapeless people whose
time on Earth has been ill spent, else why
has ill health plagued them? Yes, you
have no wish to be in their company
because it pains you to think anyone
might consider you belong among them
while you are aware you have nothing
whatever in common with them. Just as
well the hospital personnel are so
efficient, yes of course. Yes, they
waste no time in excessive, misplaced
courtesies for the ambience is not that
of a socially pleasant gathering. Yes, it's
a miserable way to spend a day though
mere hours sufficed for your purpose.
And yes, consider this: you were not
hoisted off to that drear place through
accident or emergency but arrived there
on your own cognizance of your own 
volition, a temporary hiatus of your
quotidian familiarity with the order of
your ordinary life, now returned. Yes?