Marching Out

All the signs are there. We have simply
overlooked them, failed to appreciate
their underlying meaning, taking it on
mistaken belief that the intermediate month
between winter and spring was simply
acting out its role as it must. But must
March be so belligerent? Must the month
trot out its most inclement disposition
day by day, leaving witnesses agape at
its audacity in holding spring hostage to
a recalcitrant winter? March, after all
should be non-partisan, its assigned role
that of transition. Perhaps resentment
simmers deep enough to raise its ire
that April is adored and March deplored.
This is an issue of its own making and
none should be moved to pity the month
that never hesitates to call up a rousing
icy storm to shake residents out of their
complacency in trust that spring will soon
arrive. Not if March can help it, and it can.
But no longer on this last day of its
wretched reign. Now the word is this
month must march right out and none 
too soon, releasing its hold on spring.
The simple equation being that March
must be gone before spring can beguile.

 

Defining Faith

We have faith that tomorrow will
arrive on schedule, grounded in the
experience that it always does. Never
do we think: what if? We believe
that when everything around us has
swept us into a hopeless tide of
dysfunction we keep faith with hope.
Faith is the belief that the one we
have invested our intimate emotions
with will always reciprocate and life
will be one long and happy path to
the future together. Faith is what those
who believe in the presence of an
all-powerful divinity have despite no
visible evidence. Seeing is believing
to many, not all. On a more pedestrian
level is the faith that takes us along
life's varying avenues in the trust we
will select the one leading to good
fortune. Even more humdrum is the
daily faith we have that nature which
for many is the only true religion will
remember her promises to us and
honour her seasons. Take spring for
example, nature's tardy daughter for
whom procrastination has become an
art form. It takes faith on our part
when confronted with snowstorms in
spring to have confidence in nature.

The Dilemma

While self-awareness may not be
restricted to humankind and all
creatures value freedom secondary
to the struggle for survival the value
inherent in self-agency cannot be
overstated. We have an inherent
need not only to endure but to do so
at our liberty to find our very own
place in life and with it satisfaction
that we have been enabled to 
accomplish a role determined by
our choice fulfilling our destiny.
Opportunity and fortune become
determining factors in our search
for fulfillment and those for whom
that path opens assume they will
always control the pathways of
their lives for we have a limited
vision of our far future and cannot
imagine ourselves old, frail and
physically incompetent, forced to
depend on the good grace of others
for intimate aid at a time when we
would have no need for their
presence yet no choice but to
accede, surrendering in the process
that most priceless of attributes,
self-agency, pride and purpose.

Woodland Elf

As elegantly Old-Wordly as he is
other-worldly we have never seen him
other than trekking through the woods in
all seasons, walking stick in either hand
as he covers the trails far faster than we
ever would or could, an elfin man in
appearance who makes few concessions
to the weather, clad in white shirt and
red windbreaker, spring, summer, fall 
and winter. Ever so slight his appearance
a will-'o-the-wisp of a person with a
precise manner and courteous in nature
he never hesitates to stop and chat and
even our two little dogs find him quite
how to put it? enchanting. The mystery
is how a person so engaged with health
and exercise and so fit as he is can
nonetheless be plagued by a series of
mechanical bodily malfunctions for he
presents as a specimen of robust health
despite an attenuated size and girth. Yet
one medical failure after another besets
our friend, from failing eyesight to heart
condition, hip replacements to aches and
pains which he endures determined never
to succumb to chronic breakdown as did
his wife now wheelchair-bound and his
committed avenue of dedicated caretaking.

Betrayed ... Again

People sharing a history and geography
are never so betrayed by others as
when their vulnerable naivete is
rewarded by the blank canvas of
indifference when the interests of
those others compete with justice
and trust is misplaced as it has been
for thirty million Kurds whose fate it
was to view as honour-bound greater
forces equipped with modern weaponry
promising to award them the assurance
of their heritage sovereignty. Men and
women alike, fiercely protective of
their own and extending haven to
other exploited and threatened people
their courage is  unchallenged, their
thirst for justice universal. On the
front line of defense against a world
threat of murderous proportions they
proved their mettle in sacrifice and
determination to succeed where all
others failed, eradicating the viral
menace of an ideology of destruction
and atrocities striking terror into the
hearts of the world community. That
steadfast people, warriors all for the
common global weal, now reap the
reward the world is prepared to grant
them; not quite their heart's desire of
recognizing their rightful, unchallenged
nationhood in sovereign territory long
theirs yet held by others, but through a
gesture granting them the sole custodian
authority of the dread terrorists defeated
on the battlefield whom the world fears
to reclaim as their own responsibility.

Beyond Empathy

It's been a long time but there
they were, on the forest trail, the
loyal duo of man and dog, both
shambolic and warmly greeting us
each in their own inimitable yet 
with very similar mannerisms.
The strangest things in life
are often true. Consider this: people
and dogs through long familiarity
resemble one another. There is
that peculiarity that people seem
to be attracted to dogs that
somehow resemble them in size
colour, personality and even
physiognomy. And even more
odd as time elapses and they
grow emotionally co-dependent
the resemblance quickens and
they share emotions and reactions.
Of course it is also true that dogs
have the upper hand in their
capacity to detect what their
humans are feeling reacting with
that knowledge in concern and
authentic commiseration; their
inbred traits and discernment far
the superior of the two species
so in fact while humans tend to the
existential needs of their
companions so too do dogs from
their eerie perspective of
identifying signals we cannot
possibly conceive of. And here
they are attendant on each other
Dan's personal life an abject misery
and Charlie's mission in life to
empathize, lightening the load.

 

Return To Zion

Faith in their prophets and faithful to
the Almighty the Orientals living
amongst those greater populations
defined as Semites recall the glory
that once was Judea a proud heritage
of a people whose spirit would remain
unbroken though Solomon's Temple
was twice destroyed and his people
exiled to live an existence of mournful
remembrance holding sacred the
promise of elusive Zion. Pilgrimage
to the ruins of the Temple in memory
of a time long gone refreshed the
pledge of next year in Jerusalem
ancient city of David and of Divine
presence, its essence defined in grace
and enshrined in defiance against
Imperial Rome. Diaspora remnants
dream of return, to join those who
had never abandoned the sacred soil
their selves enslaved but their souls
free to worship even as they decried
their fate leaving discreet messages on
the Wall, weeping, swaying, praying.

And Life Goes On

Hope springs eternal. That humanity
will one day find the formula to
extend human life indefinitely. Why die
when life beckons? The unknown can be
terrifying and the Great Darkness that
is death most certainly qualifies as a
terrifying prospect by which to end
existence. Life itself is an act of defiance.
Living as though death is not -- yet
inevitable. Those for whom it came too
early and by heinous design stare at the
camera, their eyes enormous with the
hunger to live. Look more deeply and
there it is the fear of the vast abyss and
nothing. From existence to obliteration. 
Gone the soul, the mind, the expressions
and emotions of humanity. Cherubic
children whom early childhood disease
spoke the final word before carrying
them off. Starving populations dying
when crops failed. Fearful prisoners
awaiting execution for the crime of being
themselves in a world that militates who
they must be. Diminishing the world's
population by identifying those unfit
to live ideologies and religions have been
hard at work remorselessly extinguishing
the lives of innocents. Humanity in its
full panoply of good and evil in tandem
with the relentlessly smug Angel of Death.  

Thee and Me

The received wisdom of the sages
not to be questioned, there for us to
recognize as universal truths such as
no man is an island but yet open to
question. Though we are by nature
gregarious creatures seeking our
place amongst others like ourselves
and finding comfort in not being
alone and hoping that our presence
is valued and our good natures are
recognized by others who will come
to our aid when we are in evident
need, we are our very selves islands
living in remote isolation from all
others, uncertain and fragile in thought
and temperament shielding ourselves
from discovery, maintaining discreet
counsel, presenting one aspect of
ourselves to public view while that
hidden portion of self is held beyond
the knowledge of any. For the simple
truth is we are ourselves puzzled by
who we are, how we are motivated and
the emotions that spring from the
depths of our subconscious as we
struggle to understand the facade we 
present living our hermit lives.

Once Upon A Time

When we were impressionably young
and the world was our mysterious
playground we clamoured in our
gatherings celebrating life in a wild
cacophony of sound, we squealed with
the pleasure of discovery, we rejoiced
as our curiosity was rewarded and we
resented being told we must be quiet
seen and not heard an impossible
imposition on the liberty of a child's
questing mind on the journey of life.
Eventually we discerned the utility of
silence as we interpreted our peers'
skill in non-verbal messaging enabling
communication between teens, hiding
it from our elders' probing eyesight.
When our own children were infants
we spoke in whispers lest we disturb
the peace of their slumbers and later
in modulated tones of instruction bade
them to think before speaking. Taken
in the round, life has shaped our voices
from the boisterous freedom of early
years to the considered impact of later
years' expressions of the words of life.

Being Happy

Life is a paradox, one that does not
happily, exclude satisfaction. Not
even when one's native land offers
weather extremes and awkward
geology, with greater familiarity
to Arctic than Melanesian pleasure.
Yet one becomes accustomed to the
familiar and finds comfort in what
has always been. Human nature is
such that one adjusts or one does not
and those who fail to, contribute to
the high suicide rate while those
who do are awarded by a world body
assessing humanity and the clemency
of surroundings the recognition of
being the happiest nation on Earth.
More winter than summer Finland's
culture that of community and soft
comfort in unity and interdependence
where celebrity is absent and modesty
a reflection of a people's choice. A
nation unlike most whose attraction
to migrants is non-existent leaving
ample living and leisure space for all
and a society that institutionalizes its
children in the education system only
when they're more mature and sees no
advantage to homework or tests seems
like perfection from youth to old age.


 

Progress ...

The lot of humankind is steadily
improving and we know this because
we are informed of the great good news
that world hunger is being appeased
fewer people now inhabiting this globe
alongside we fortunate ones born in
the right place at the right time face
starvation, privation, sickness and
premature death. Take Africa as an
example, the place where exasperated
mothers used to point out to their
balking children refusing to eat the
food so lovingly prepared for them to
grow healthy in mind and body yet
relentlessly informed of the darkly
sinister truth that children just like
them went to bed hungry every night
without the choice to select what they
might eat and what set aside. African
children are now assured a steady diet
of nutritious meals thanks to progress
in agriculture, technology and economy.
Ah, Africa! Where tribalism, clans and
ethnic and religious sectarianism roils
the continent's inhabitants in one conflict 
after another while their leaders glower 
at the representatives of Western nations
once their colonial overlords raping
the geography of its natural resources
humiliating the people as lesser humans
demanding restitution while doing little
to improve the lives of their own, too busy
grumblingly building their bank accounts
quite like their Western counterparts.

The Dramatist

Utterly charming, a prince of a fellow
whose talents and charisma stand out
in a field of earnest others serious
of mien and failing to capture the
admiration of the voting public. A
prince indeed, one descended from an
aristocracy of inherited wealth and a
father who in his turn captured the
public imagination to reign before him
as the philosopher-king of politics. His
son while inheriting some of his father's
qualities, beginning with showmanship
and an aura of authority, unfortunately
followed his mother's genetic code
absent cerebral acuity, compensating
by a full-spectrum self-confidence nicely
bolstered by the conviction of wholesale
entitlement. The electorate is entirely
polarized between those who wince
each time the man emits commitments
to virtuous enterprises with a breezy
comment and a sunshine smile, and 
the other half who celebrate his vaunted
progressive credentials as a liberal
socialist feminist endearing himself
endlessly to the socially connected in a
youth culture whose social contract is to 
spurn fusty old verities of another era. 

Restraint of the Essence

Hush. Not another word! For shame.
Confine your comments, if some must
issue from your bitten tongue to genuine
expressions of condemnation that so
many innocent people have perished at
the hand of an ideology whose conscience
leads to a pact with the devil within
committing merciless evil for evil in a
hate-riddled mendacity of saving this
world from an encroaching menace to
blight the future. Understand that your
thoughts translated at this moment into
words will have a resonance beyond
what you mean to convey. Be assured
that your understanding of the situation
in the round and what its transformative
result will be is shared by many who
themselves exercise caution not to sully
their minds with retributive celebration
for such is the mindset of those who you
have reason to deplore. The time most
assuredly will swiftly arise when you may
express your sincere misgivings without
fear of misleading others to name you
for what you do not represent. Patience.

Between Species

Sometimes that old adage
of not being able to pick your
neighbours is defied when you
enjoy the great good fortune
of a home situated nearby
an urban forest because in
your decision-making living
nearby a natural preserve
represented quality in life for
you. And then comes the part
when you and your neighbours
casually agree to reciprocation
they accepting your occasional
presence in their habitat and
you acceding to theirs in yours
so that over the years of near
co-habitation a familiarity of
trust is established and now
you revel in their presence
revealed now and again in the
forest leading you to honour an
unspoken pact that in times of
seasonal want you extend a
pantry of nuts, seeds and varied
delectables on your porch for
easy access to your guests
both diurnal and nocturnal.

.

Our Heavenly Mother

We are termed humankind yet there
is little 'kind' about our humanity
and we are like frightened children
in the frailty of our need and the
ferocity of our rage. In our never
ending search for comfort in a hostile
world where fortune gives no guarantees
of survival we search for answers and
find none while in the process declare
our faith in the presence of a heavenly
spirit whose powers are overwhelming
and endless yet gently loving to his
faithful. Perhaps that father figure has
since time immemorial challenged the 
authority of the spirit possessing the true
power of creation, the mother of all
that exists who, once having created
her creatures leaves them to their own
devices, to struggle and to endure as
best they can, while finding belief in
the presence of a primeval figure
reassuring to minds unprepared for
rational thought inherent in the truth
that we are as we are as designed and
bred by nature whose powers are manifest
and purpose inconceivable. Magisterial
omnipotence is irrelevant to the forces
that nature employs and trust in an
omniscient god a trifle for babes.

Not To Worry

All will be well, play your cards
cunningly and it's not all that hard to
do because you had the vision to
answer the call of faith duty to leave
for abroad to join an exciting enterprise
in the process find a husband and
have children to people the world in
exchange for those babes slaughtered
as unworthy along with their fathers
while their mothers were kept as sex
slaves and since it was all sanctioned
by the sacred texts you honour, you
are guilty of nothing but faithfulness.
Join the ranks of those deemed free
of responsibility for their actions
harmful to humanity and society
such as the traitors whose access to
classified data enables them to betray
their country, along with members
of your very own faith opting to 
remain at 'home' in the West and to
get on with life by preying on the
most vulnerable of women now and
again to dispose of them like trash;
first the murder then dismemberment
and what they have in common is
appealing to the mercy of public
consciousness that prays at the alter
of forgiveness when males transition
to female designation joining a newly
defended demographic that can do no
wrong and for whom all is forgiven
the irony being of course that while
they receive treatment similar to your
own, pardoning their very personae
represent anathema to your sense of
righteous sanctimony based on faith.

Martyrdom

How exciting and meaningful it is to live 
in today's enlightened society. Existing in
fact in that half of the world that appears to 
have become infected with the virtue of 
progressive humanitarianism while the 
other half appears to have regressed with 
few regrets as primally ravening eager to 
feast on the corpses of those they have 
slaughtered for not being just like them. 
The enlightened people make no demands 
that others share their tender sensibilities 
and penalize no one for not so doing at the 
very time the barbarians are, so to speak
at the gate. With the utmost courtesy those
slavering beasts are invited through the
gate, for the enlightened make no effort
to be judgemental, firmly convinced that
a different kind of enlightenment must
have swept through the consciousness
of those now infiltrating the ranks of the
pure at heart. A contest of values? This
is a conflict like no other, combatants on
one side, placaters on the other. Conscience
is a hard taskmaster; its lack enabling. In
essence the two utterly divergent attitudes
share a major tenet albeit variantly defined
and approached, in achieving martyrdom.

Routine Choice

Routine regulates our lives. Our 
minds are free to occupy thoughts
other than what our subconscious
guides us to automatically tend to.
Case in point the care taken to insert
a plastic bag in the rigid plastic boxes
we use weekly for our food shopping
expeditions. Our consciousness has
accepted that certain of our choices
will give aid and support to those
whose choices are limited. That
routine extends to the type of food
we favour, a selective choice varying
but little from week to week. Staples
and non-perishable items that never
form part of our own basic food 
choices, with an emphasis on
balancing protein with carbohydrates
and fat we use ourselves in common
perishable form. The week's selection
taken to the cash-out where the same
cashier week after week graciously
smiles her personal greeting while
patiently withdrawing each item from
that plastic bag separating them from
our take-home whole foods to run them
through the register, then carefully 
return each to the bag, knotting the top 
securely, to take its place in the large 
bin awaiting eventual pickup by our 
neighbourhood food cupboard. We 
are, in essence, making selections
of comestibles for people we don't
know as though inviting guests to
our dinner table to share with us a
meal perhaps unpalatable to their
taste, partaking with little choice.

 

 

Beyond Knowing

So what would you do if you ran out
of time? Shrug. Fair enough. What could
be done if the existence of the Universe
ran out of time? This is no idle question.
The most brilliant minds on this planet
are struggling with the possibility that...
time may run out...really. That does require
some explication: time, as in nothing left
a vacuum, everything in the cosmos simply
explodes, rips asunder, disappears; this is
not a Humpty-Dumpty scenario. Should
this occur there will be nothing left to be
put back together again. The immensity
of the universe will have been -- for an
unaccountable period of time -- and run
its course. Physicists, cosmologists and
astronomers gather to discuss amongst
themselves the latest findings and analyses
to debate the likelihood of brilliant and
perhaps troubling hypotheses; troubling
in the sense of what they portend, brilliant
in that these ineluctable conclusions 
are based on the genius of minds capable
of grasping nature's elusive architecture.
And what they propose variously is the
existence of lightweight subatomic particles
energizing the universe to store ever more
energy as it expands with ever greater
momentum; it may stabilize, but if not
eventually everything that exists will
become more remote and the universe
darker and the chasm that it may produce
sinister to existence. And then there is
phantom energy where expansion causes
the loss of energy, gravity overcome
and all would rip apart, atoms last to go.

Devolution's Deity

Just as nature abhors a vacuum
so too does the human psyche search
for rescue from boredom, filling its
collective mind with intellectual
pursuits, the gravity of existence
forging emotional relationships
and setting out on cerebral and
physical voyages of discovery. It
is this very attribute of curiosity
and interaction allied with enerprise
that has built over the millennia
a shared understanding of equality
rights struggling to make itself
universal, a world of innovation of
technical and industrial magnitude 
that has lifted humankind into an era 
of ease, surcease from poverty and
a wholesome appreciation of fortune's
vicissitudes. In an incalculable and
mysterious reversal a significant
demographic clings to ancient fears
dedicating themselves to a mystic
almighty force of faith taking from
it not the admonitions of decency
but the forms of suspicion, envy
resentment and hatred spurring
them to reject civilized norms in
favour of stark savagery claiming
service to a powerful, vengeful and
jealous god to whom all must pay
due obeisance or forfeit life.

I Am As I Am

It began as a dream, became a
frantic search, and finally an
unexpected denouement. My
errant, headstrong puppy decided
to disappear into a crowd and I
ran after him, calling to no avail.
I ran about as one demented
searching with frantic intensity
haunted by the thought that he
would come to harm and I love
the little beggar. Then a change
for I no longer knew where I was
and began to search with mounting
frenzy for familiarity and found
none. I yearned to return home
but no matter where I looked
nowhere was known to me any
path that would lead me there.
And then I was in an office where
an officious young woman sat
at a desk surrounded by elderly
women. I begged for help so I
could find my way home. Address?
I couldn't recall, but did know my
postal code. One moment, please
as she went off to check further.
I chatted with the other women
all of them replete with stories of
ill health and I empathized. Soon
the woman returned with a folder.
No need for questions, she said
she didn't care where I came from
all refugees and migrants accepted.
Refugees, migrants? I was born
here! Opening the folder her eyes
conspicuously widened, her mouth
grimaced and she screamed: Jew!
She's a Jew, a Jew, an accursed Jew!
Guilty, I shrank into myself.

The Beast

It is in the nature of powerful
beasts to be intimidating. They are
after all possessed with muscular
strength. Their very physical presence
is sufficient to make lesser creatures
shrink in awe and trepidation and to
exercise caution that nothing they do
will arouse the temper of the beast.
If that beast is a carnivore all the
more reason to tread lightly in its
presence. The beast knows that the
superior strength it is endowed with
and its rapacious appetite has few
matches. It swaggers in its entitlement.
Enjoying its own formidable reputation
there come moments of insecurity
and self-doubt when it wonders as
well why it inspires fear and not as
it would wish, admiration. Through
exploiting fear, however, it has amassed
advantages formerly taken by others
forcibly securing that most priceless
of assurances; the wherewithal of
survival whose imperative drives all
living creatures to their enduring 
limits, yet another existential need
eludes as none will companion it.

In The Woods

A savage wind lashes the tree
tops sending them swaying
in the winter woods
a tone poem of trunks
clacking against one another
punctuating the low rushing
roar of the wind as it
rages against the forest canopy
sending last year's crop of
juvenile crows into a
synchronized spurt of black
dervishes high in the sky
interrupting their impudent
raging croaks directed at an
owl perched on the crooked
bare mast of a dead pine
unperturbed by the crows' 
challenges to a maestro of raw
and deadly rapacity beyond and
above their role as opportunists
mere carrion-eaters lacking the
will and the skill to swoop
upon oblivious prey, their
deadly talons and beak
formidable to their task. One
nocturnal the other diurnal
nature investing them with 
unequal qualities; the hunters
and their clever tormentors.

Feminist Justin

By no means is the pleasure
evinced from admiration from
another the proprietary reaction
necessarily of one gender over 
another but females it is safe to
say do indulge in the delectation
of receiving praise and notice
from men reacting according to
the emotive codes that nature 
has endowed them with so very

inextricably linked with sex in

its most primal instincts as yet

another endowment for survival

of the human race. Most men

react positively to expectations

of submissiveness, while others

make the mistake of admiring

women of poise and strength of

character, professing their very

personal inclination in honouring

feminism often reflecting in

very point of fact an overweening

need to attract admiration to their

confidence in extolling female

virtues as their very own thus

commanding esteem for their

personal principles. Sometimes 

it is men wielding power who use

the acclaim they gain with an

assurance that women they elevate

will be swift to support all their

positions in matters where ethical

conduct is questioned, only to 

have their fantasies destroyed

by condemnation by the very

women whom their influence has

raised to public acclaim. Proving

that flattery will never bear

acquiescence over principle, a

sometimes-female prerogative.