Hauteur vs Generosity 

of Spirit

What an odd phenomenon is the
social culture of a political movement
colouring the social contract between
people and ideology giving character
to the amorphous mass that is a given
society priding their superior values
in a civil covenant distinguishing their
view of self and of others in the classic 
entitled 'us' and the backward 'them'. 
Take, for example, those committed to
the core values of progressivism
heralding themselves as liberals
expounding universalities and freedom
but whose trenchant hostilities toward
the great social unwashed of deep
conservatism drips with acid contempt.
While those they decry value nation
and liberty, civil manners and hard work
alongside appreciation of history and
heritage -- open-minded and courteous
overlooking the curt dismissiveness
of the factions that accuse them, a  
model of rational debate and defence
of hard-won respect and tolerance
knee-capped by the left. Examples
abound of self-celebrated liberalism
those progressives with their social 
culture of hostility as opposed to their
neighbours with their self-regulating
conservatism in a laid-back social culture
of inclusiveness and warmth to share.

 

Forest Interior

It is a breathing, growing and
glowing emerald world awakening
a primal memory and an arcane
nurturing need inviting entry to the
known unknown. The reassuring
mass of the forested domain
suddenly reveals a dark interior
sinister in its appetite to extinguish
the glow of daylight despite the
persistence of rays of sunlight
penetrating the forest canopy.
Shafts illuminating the gloom
of the interior leaving discrete
and movable patches of
brightness lingering on bracken.
Creatures large and small fly
through thickets of trees or
scurry across the forest floor
as shadows lengthen and dark
intrudes to introduce nightfall.

Choices

Sunday at the village crossroad is
circumscribed as a shared social covenant
of obligation, fervour and favour. Congregants
seated in the church pews come the morning
manifest their faith in witness to tradition
and the sanctity of appearances silencing
critics. That adherence to habit and virtue
trades place by afternoon with the
comfortable acknowledgements as
casual recognition in the nearby pub
the social scene moving from one venue
to the other for the town stalwarts. Yet
others still choose to bypass either habit
by their own clear Sunday voice opting
to indulge their singular faith by immersing
in nature's precincts, roaming the nearby
mountain trails, succumbing to the allure
of the forest interiors, their pristine lakes
and mountain streams, there giving homage
and recognition to another creator altogether.

Companions

Fall asters and goldenrod sit astride
the margins of the forest within
whose interior the raucous sound of
cascading water can be clearly heard
a cooling sound on a hot and humid
early fall day. A man and his dog
have chosen the day to roam the forest
stopping to linger by the crystalline
brook streaming down the flank of
the mountain, frothing and rippling
over the boulder-strewn streambed.
There where a drop creates a rapid
the water gathers, eddies and pools
before resuming its journey. And there
at the bank of the pool, the Golden
pauses then leaps into the swirl of
the beckoning pool and the man
inspired, pulls off his shirt and
follows, the two meeting at the
pool's centre to share the joy of its
fresh, cooling sensation of freedom
to revel in nature's unconditional offer.

Forest Atmosphere

At the junction of the main trail
leading through the forest, a side
trail beckons further into the dim
forest interior where a narrower 
passage through the thickets of
mixed conifer and deciduous
invites the curious to venture. The
gloom lifts as eyes adjust to a
meagre light penetration through
the thick shield of needles and
foliage though glimpses of a
benevolent blue sky remain
evident through the dense forest
canopy, and here birds and butterflies
flit silently through the serenity
of an atmosphere of solitary
grace, the occasional shaft of
sunlight brightening the eggshell
white of newly emerged fungi
stippling the forest floor, the green
glow of lichen mantling tree trunks
in a humid woodland ensconced
and overshadowed by mountain
slopes, moistened by the ferocious
spray of nearby mountain streams.

 

On The Hunt

Byron told us one of his long-time
neighbours augments his livelihood
by hunting up fungi in the forest.
Byron is an avid gardener, among
his many talents and interests, but
mycology mystifies him. There's a
ready market in high-end restaurants
for locally foraged mushrooms he tells
us and the prices his friend can command
equally mystifies him. We commiserate
for though his friend speaks reassuringly
of easily become adept at recognizing
which among the fungi are edible and
which poisonous, Byron has his
personal doubts despite the allure of
supplementing his own income and his
curiosity both about growing things and
marketplace values. We, on the other
hand are left somewhat bemused by
the very thought that high-end eating
establishments even exist in this
bucolic backwater and the possibility
of dining discernment among its residents.

Puissant Nature

Tumbling down and over the 
mountainside in ceaseless motion
the roaring stream foams, fizzes and 
swirls in eddies about and around
granite obstacles whose own
slides from their mountain perch
above the alpine inspired by rain
sleet, wind and snow are merely
temporary restraints for though they
may have slid thudding down the
mountain a hundred, a thousand
years ago, they are incidental, the
stream itself timeless as it steadily
washes its noisy, tumultuous journey
furiously descending, sweeping all
in its path with the persuasion of
inexorable power in the fullness
of time, its journey brooking no
resistance as its bright silver ribbon
of froth descends under a watchful
sky, acceding to nature's order.

Only The Lonely

A little overweight, but who of us past
middle-age isn't? and few carry it as
lightly as she does. Facial features
somewhat awry from cleft palate
surgery that doesn't impede her smile
much less her capacity to charm. Her
ardent need to ventilate obvious yet
not onerous, there is no obligation
other than a civilized recognition of
emotional need. This woman is also
disarmingly aware of receptivity, she
is a someone; not seeking the social
charity of the kindness of strangers
and nor is she bereft of the manners
of one who knows that we each of us
carry our own burdens. Lightening
her load despite the brevity of the
encounter comes with no conditions.
She deftly shields herself from pity
knows how to dress and carry herself.
Elegant and showy, she has presence
a striking woman of considerable
assets. Twice yearly we stop briefly
at the flea market to peruse the aisles
of trivia. A few warm minutes of
friendly chatter to resume an old
erratic conversation, renewing the
casual friendship of someone who
speaks of her intimate life, the details
imparted over the course of years
as though intervening months are
utterly irrelevant to the ebb and flow 
of a life in graduated conversation.

 

Aqua Pura Power

Scoured since its primeval
eruption from the cooling
Earth's crust, the smooth granite
slope of the mountain is home
to a constant stream whose
gushing crystalline force roars
in a frenzy of power and
presence that even granite
is not impervious to. Beside
the gushing stream are banks
of ancient tumbled gneiss
and granite erratics, the gneiss
layered, gnarly with stubborn
vegetation harbouring the
ambition to become trees.
Ancient hemlock, oak and 
yellow birch populate the
mountain slope beneath the
alpine but it is the mountain
stream oblivious to interruption
that speaks on the mountain
as it relentlessly, timelessly
scours the slope into a serried
succession of runnels, pools
and basins that speak of nature's
knowing blueprint in ordering
the echelons of executive power.

Canadian, Are You?

A local state highway to be sure
but a fluctuating speed limit, surely odd.
A defined destination and certain 
specific direction equate to a highway
passing commercial outlets interspersing
endless forest vistas for this is a state
famed for its magnificent geology
a treasured mountain range and
endless forests and rivers. In the
space-time of a half-hour drive
cautions in signage leap-frogging 
from 55mph  to 35 to 45mph. Law
abiding, you comply, then note
oncoming traffic at the speed you had
reduced from, and behind you a long
line of backed-up vehicles. The rear-view
mirror notes a police car lights blazing
cutting the line, signalling pull over.
Can I see your license, your registration.
A report sir, just checking no medical
distress problem, no alcohol, no drugs
sir. And it dawns those other motorists
routinely ignore posted speed limits
on that stretch, a political game the
incumbent plays to garner votes that
other locals choose to flout; yes sir.

The Renewable Forest

The atmosphere suffused with moisture
belying a hot and dry summer. Early
fall's flirtation with cold, wind and
rain in a counterbalance is bridging
the deficit. Mid-afternoon and the
forest interior is beset with dusk
yet above the dense green canopy
and despite the low ceiling of dirty
clouds a glow and glimmer of light
prevails appearing to find its echo
on the forest floor where colonies of
large white fungi, cup-shaped, saucers
and fluted occupy spaces beneath the
understory of blush-leafed dogwood
among the bracken, their shapely edges
round or scalloped a bounty of nature's
endless elaboration of her creative
capacity for renewal partnering the
forest mass of decaying matter with
avid microbes achieving her cycle.

 

Incipient

The clouds ragged, dark grey
give promise of more rain.
Mist hangs in the distance
where the mountain stream
spews off the granite slopes.
The forest is draped in humidity
and thick layers of rich moss
emboss the forest floor alongside
elegant curlicues of silvery-white
lichen. Already, the dogwood
understory hoists red flags 
for fall. The creek tumbles
and spews over boulders
lining its watercourse, tossed
there in an upheaval when
the mountain shuddered
millenniums past. Birds are
silent, as though awaiting the
inevitable downpour from the
bleak, wind-scudding clouds.

To Have and To Hold

The electric warmth and excitement of
a touch, the anxious comfort of knowing 
that somewhere someone awaits your
presence a meeting of mind and body
only serendipitous chance can guarantee
heightens the suspense that a deliberate
search cannot resolve for gregarious
creatures such as we whose life's
fulfillment is dependent on fully
exploring all the promises of existence
with a firm focus on the ultimate goal
of discovering among the multitudes of
people sharing the globe that single soul
whose harmony echoes your own. Best
not to dwell on the reality that among
those you know the tempest of dissimilar
views in a binary relationship dooms it
to failure, best to avoid thinking of the
sadness in the eyes of a distant friend
whom opportunity has failed leaving
them adrift, unanchored in love and in
life. The virtue of patience has no place
in the long, weary wait for completion
for that sensuous touch, the knowing
eyes, the illuminating smile and the
open path chosen by you leading to
that fork meeting the path your other
has chosen moving inexorably toward
destiny, shared and treasured, a gift
beyond measure to have and to hold.

Consolation

It could be viewed as a trite and
trifling gesture yet bearing in
mind the reality that
nature is all-powerful
and the universe turns to her
rules and hers alone that very
gesture could also be interpreted
as a conciliatory acknowledgement
that even she can regret the
alarm that arises within the acute
consciousness of her creatures
from the dawn of creation
to the present despite constant
iterations of the seasons, their
departures and arrivals
when the unmistakable 
signals so familiar and so
dreaded appear, the dimming
of daylight hours and the
sound of songbirds at night
in their migratory flight
shriveling vegetation and
the waning of days as cold
permeates the atmosphere and
wind blows bright foliage
from their forest perches
a pensive sadness pervades of 
summers past for years and youth 
cannot be recaptured. Yet in a brief
display of heavenly illumination
that gift of light and colour as
the sun descends reminds us of
gratefulness for our very existence.

Performance

Not that she, a poor village women ever 
aspired to stardom, yet there she was centre 
stage, her peers surrounding the spectacle
of the burly man who was her partner in the
drama that unfolded. He was not the one
she had spoken to brazenly in defiance of
heritage, custom and Islamic Sharia in a
display of dishonouring her family by her
lack of virtue, speaking through the fabric
of her niqab to ask a question. Ask not what
the penalty is pronounced by the village
council of elders for to ask is to betray
unforgivable ignorance betraying the most
basic of Islamic precepts; woman: hide
speak not, silently exist but be fecund and
industrious. On another stage the figure of
another defiant yet faithful in Islam who
sneers at the sectarian impudence of his
majority population asking for parity with
those of their ruler's sect whom he labels
terrorists embarking on a campaign of 
arrest, torture and slaughter. The civilized
world watches in horror but he will be
redeemed by those who will not hesitate to
support his reign of terror, reestablishing
the respect in which such butchering tyrants
are held. The village woman's lacerated back
will heal, she will resume her humble place
forever be known as a humiliated penitent.

In Their Image

Those of faith in the belief of a supreme
power accept that the spirit of whose
existence they believe is temperamental
capable of great benevolence as a
keeper of souls, yet equally able
to countenance great cruelties much
as the ancient Greeks and Romans
ascribed powerful emotions that
reside deep in the inner sanctums of
the human psyche are present in the
dramas enacted by their panoply of
gods and their part-human offspring.
Yet despite their sometimes sinister
interplays with one another and their
penchant toward viewing their human
subjects as playthings available for
their discreet use to relieve the tedium
of uncontested power they were
regarded as sublimely supreme to be
unconditionally obeyed lest their
predicable wrath fall on the feeble
heads of their disobedient challengers.
In their wisdom the gods of the upper
chambers of the universe bestowed
those very same emotions of greed
jealousy and carnal desire on their
human subjects for their pride in self
was of such a dimension only pale
imitations of their glorious appearance
the very perfection of existence would
do, completed by bestowing upon the
lesser creatures minds emulating theirs.

Wondering

You wondered when you were a little
girl what it would be like to have a tiny
creature of your own, so when you were
given a kitten to hold and it peed on you
you wondered no more. You wondered
a little older what lay over the fence in
the next yard until the girl who lived
there finally invited you in and showed
you a hatch in the grass, lifting it to reveal
a set of rustic-green steps and when you
clambered after her there was a wide
meadow, a tiny house and a tinier man
sitting beside it, and then you knew and
wondered no more. You wondered when
you entered your teen years what it must
be like for the one girl in the class who
was tall, blond, developed and wore makeup
what it must be like and among all the others
in the class she befriended you alone, took
you to her home, introduced you to her
father whom you knew instinctively your
parents would never approve of, yet
admired his daughter who took a job as
a movie usher in uniform and before the
year was out left school, expecting a baby.
You wondered why it was that people
distrusted one another and your father
told you ignorance, so you vowed never
to be ignorant.  You wondered why it was
that complete strangers approached you
to question where you were 'from' and
were never satisfied with your response
urging you to tell them where you were
after all, 'really' from, and you wondered.

Divine Fervour

Might there exist a more subtle Trojan
horse than the beguiling beauty of
exquisite art to pacify suspicion and
arouse grateful enthusiasm in the minds
of the recipients for their benefactors
teaching them the intricacies of complex
mathematics, scientific enquiry and the
execution of sublime architectural
details, the painting of unrivalled in
beauty art in a generosity of spirit
reciprocated by blind trust. The cunning
of patience verily is a timeless virtue
whose reward may be long in coming
but when it does success is manifest.
Such are plans that may yet go awry
and such was the plan that did when
Europe shrugged off the placating
overtures of Islam's silk-threaded bonds
to reassert Christianity, a rejection
whose heated rage has served to turn
suasion in the direction of violence as
the faithful have been recalled to their
duty to the divine purpose of conquest.

Forest Life

Hsssht! Now you see it, soon you won't.
The resorption of the bracken has begun.
The green vegetation that once crowded
the forest floor is succumbing to the
inevitable, turning yellow, vanishing into
the leaf mass of generations becoming part
and portion of the universal regeneration 
of life. Overhead, through the canopy of
the forest, clouds have gathered, petulant
and threatening shoved by a high wind
and the forest interior glows dark though
dusk has not yet entered where hot and
humid air has created a mist of water
vapour and the air is rent with the shrill
call of a woodpecker as though laughing
at its own ribald humour. Songbirds prepare
for their nocturnal flyways to escape the
frigid winter months, looping through the
forest while small furred animals busy
themselves gathering seeds and nuts in
a frenzy of silent action. Gusts of hot wind
carry the unmistakable stench of skunk
to the lower edges of the ravined forest
from a site above where youth sit awaiting
the dark cover of night quietly speaking
through the haze of their marijuana joints.

Beyond Cognition

The puzzle is in understanding
precisely what level of
consciousness alerts you
to the fleeting appearance
of a hovering presence
something that passes
between you and
whatever it is that shields
its reality from a rational
understanding that there
may be a substance or a
being of some kind whose
nature is unknown that
exists beyond our full
recognition but that it exists
appears to be verified by
those brief glimpses
perhaps some subterranean
vision you are unaware of
hovers while ensuring that you
cannot rationalize its presence
but that it is there ever so
briefly and confoundingly
is not imagination, merely a
phenomenon that nature has not
yet fully revealed to science.

The Novel

It is a gift, an altruistic offering
and at the very same time a
selfish self-affirmation, one that
brings pride and satisfaction to the
gifted writer capable of forming
the magic of the alphabet into
words and descriptions of their
very own adventure of imagination
or transcription of experience
making of it a conveyance
available to strangers a mode
whereby anyone who values the
prize of reading has been enabled
through that medium to travel as
near or as far as they might wish
exerting their own imagination in
the magical process of immersion
in the mind of another, an intimacy
without touch yet with sensual
occupancy of the most emotional
kind, two lives touching without
either knowing what has occurred.