In Summation

Despite the cold and the snow flurries
persisting in the atmosphere we know
that calendar spring has arrived and
await reassurance that the biosphere
of our local geography has lapsed
from winter to spring so we intensify
the search for signals of that arrival
and are rewarded by the first signs of
the forest floor thawing and thrusting
wild strawberries appear. Overhead a
wild cacophony of geese as their
formation glides over the forest canopy.
In the snowmelt-swollen creek of the
ravine two drakes battle for the affection
of a Mallard duck. In the underbrush
snakes seeking sun writhe in an ecstasy
of copulation, oblivious of our presence.
Seen are the squirrels bolting here and
there, and under a copse of spruce their
cones arrayed neatly revealed by the
receded snowpack. Raccoons are unseen
other than their presence on our porch
daintily gathering nuts, seeds and kibble.
All this in a week of daily forays into
the forest observing and today's sun
brought out the final reassurance with
the appearance of a Mourning Cloak
the longed-for rites of spring at last.

The City of David

From time immemorial was it ever thus
that heritage and blood marked the ancient
Judean capital and that which was once
Judea is now Israel the grieved land of Zion
where a union of tribes once vanquished for
their pride and resistance to conquest formed
a vast diaspora in lands other than their own
where their presence was at times tolerated
yet time and again persecution and bloodshed
fated them to languish and weep for a long
awaited salvation to join their brethren in
the holy land rightfully theirs to hold and
to keep. A land once sacred and fertile
its ancient history storied and studied
its guiding influence shaping the world to
come. Just as the timeless invasive stories
of challenge and defence once roiled the
Semites of Judea they continue to contest
the origins, authenticity and legitimacy of
Israel reborn. This time finding a people 
well versed in adversity over the aeons with
its established culture of self defence and its
ongoing intention to remain, the Wandering
Jew of history replaced by a prepared and
adamant presence of absolute permanence.


 

The Great Procreator

She is nothing if not beguiling for her 
beauty and charm are so beyond legendary
one could claim with no exaggeration
she has no rivals. And like any female
she knows this -- preening from time to
time and flexing her unmatched allure
to fascinate even as she occasionally
torments her legion of admirers by 
launching the most unfortunate of events 
in her effortless way as a demonstration 
of her influence on the elements she has
fashioned in her designs on domination.
She is without doubt as a voluptuous
siren that none can defy -- fecund beyond
belief. Her age, now that is a mystery she 
holds close to her bosom defiant of 
disclosure, but it is known that in her youth 
she was an indiscriminately passionate 
advocate of birthing a profoundly amazing 
variety of life. She is impetuous and 
occasionally vindictive, warm one instant
cold another, her moods inconstant. An
unfortunate addiction arose in middle age 
to staging spectaculars yet as she aged she 
became forgetful and it was assumed past 
her prime, unable to locate the moderating 
influences of sun and wind, rain and carbon 
she so direly depended on for balance upon 
her creation, leaving humankind in fear 
for her fabled longevity and theirs as well.

Fundamental Skills

It was an uncomplicated existence
when for so long little option was
offered by time and place but to
fend for oneself for the consequence
was dire and final so people learned
of necessity to value and pursue
the elementals of existence. They
rose with the sun and slept when it
set. Furnished rude tools enabling
tasks to be completed. Ate what they
could finding sources unknown to
this day for nourishment and when
ill employed the most basic of plant
knowledge to aid recovery. Entertain
themselves and their neighbours in
the sharing of talents and the passing
of gossip. Appealing for help when 
their own failed in the assurance it
would be forthcoming for they had
themselves responded to similar such
appeals. They lived and they thrived 
or they existed until they no longer
could never able to look into a future
where technology would vault their
descendants into spheres of accomplished
satisfaction in bending nature to their
will, expediting tasks once burdensome
communicating with exotic others
around an utterly changed world but
never realizing food preparation skills
simply because time and energy lacked.

It's Elemental

Tempt them and they will come both
furred and feathered regarding your
offerings as a serendipitous unquestioned
benefaction to entice them to arrive
regularly day and night in homage to
the seeds and nuts, kibble and bread
serving their existential needs. They
will be mannerly as they gradually
accept your presence no longer starting
with alarm but patiently awaiting your
ministrations allowing them to resume
their nibbling and gnawing preoccupied
with the need and the desire to fill their
bellies. And as one act of kindness breeds
another learning to tolerate the close
consuming company of others both of
their kind and not, with birds sitting
alongside squirrels and raccoons
arriving in pairs the rabbits far more
selective and as flighty as the birds
only occasionally one of  your guests
cranky, officiously tolerating no
competition. Delighting you with
their presence though their trust means
your obligation to stock their larder at
the crack of dawn, at the noon hour, in
the mid-afternoon and evening and before
you make your way to bed in this exercise
of good neighbour when times are scarce.

Easter Week

Look here: a penny for your thoughts.
And have you given thought to how
strange a place is the world in which we
live? Where, for example, the holiest day
in the Christian calendar was book-ended
by oddly discordant events causing untold
grief and suffering and all ascribed to
chance and the deadly fury of hatred. How 
distant they are, France from Sri Lanka 
yet irrespective of where in the world one 
may venture there is the sacred and the 
profane. There is chance, there is misfortune
joy and sorrow and always one hopes to 
attain one and avoid the other. There are 
planned events of notable shock and awe 
and then there is coincidence. In 2018 
France saw 875 churches vandalized yet 
an anomaly destroyed the inner sanctum 
of an ancient cathedral; God's ways are 
indeed beyond scrutiny and explication
alerting the faithful to Easter Week. And 
in Sri Lanka martyrdom-aspiring jihadists 
reached their lofty goal surrendering not 
merely their heroic lives but those of others
not quite prepared to greet death in their
innocence, yet volunteering to die through 
the act of vulnerable worship. The deity 
that Islam and Christianity view as one of 
love and peace construed through sacred 
text as one of intransigent jealousy insistent 
that all must worship or none escape his wrath. 
This threat of divine fury is taken as proof 
of God's love for his creation, humanity.

You Judge

And good luck to the struggle to
determine which side of the fault they
land on, those who out of nowhere
suddenly use electronic communications
to plead their case for your consideration.
Are they emotionally needy supplicants
for the mercy of friendship in a hostile
world or are they off on a lark of control
of harnessing their powers of persuasion
to convince that your guard be lowered
despite previous instances of similar
pleas ultimately revealing the predatory
nature of the approaches to service the
ego and more of anti-social deviants
who somehow found your image an
invitation to intrude and cast their case
into the presumed sea of sympathy your
face exudes. Your conscience refuses to
reach instant judgement allowing your
reserved responses to innocuous but
ever so persistent pedestrian questions
that defy logic in their presumptuous
enquiry leaving you feeling obliged to
reciprocate while acknowledging either
way the wind blows this is a trap you
can either succumb to in fear of harming
another person's emotional stability or
choosing to summarily cease contact in
the belief that yet another psychopath
has infiltrated your sphere uninvited.

Lonely Planet

It takes awareness. It requires patience.
Above all, the recognition of need and the 
willingness to respond as best one can for 
it is difficult at the very least for most of us 
to refrain from speaking of ourselves in 
favour of allowing others to speak of their
issues. In a world rife with disappointed 
relationships of people forever too busy 
to give deep thought to exactly what it is 
that keeps them busy and why it is that 
being busy precludes the most elemental 
need of human emotional contact we remain
bereft and confused, resentful and angry
that we are in essence alone though
surrounded by others. Granted, it is the 
very essence of chic and a status symbol 
to boast of tribulations brought to the astute
professional ear of psychotherapists skilled 
at diagnosing and assessing the state of one's
unruly mind according to the clinician's
handbook by listening, taking notes and 
prompting, so over time the benefit of 
ventilating uncertainty and confusion eases 
perceived conditions when in fact it is time 
and a sympathetic listener enabling the
perspective of dealing with life's blows.

His Element

Oh, surely local forest wildlife will
take affront that this apparition of
clearly risible appearance considers
their natural habitat a haven for
the fantastically afflicted ... seeking
asylum from a world they inhabit
secretively to enter the forest garbed 
garishly frightening two little dogs 
with the unexpected encounter of an 
insult to their sensibilities, the man
wielding a pole in either hand eyes
glaring out of a hirsute countenance
chartreuse pixie-cap balanced atop
a silken shirt of psychedelic hue
over a protruding middle bulging
beyond flapping shorts beneath
which two spindly naked shanks
veer unsteadily on the snow-laden
trail where sturdy boots of winter
quality serve better purpose than the
twinkling shallow booties worn by
this latter-day recombination of a
Viking warrior and an Irish elf
obviously believing himself to have
discovered, at long last, his element.

The Righteous Passion

Was the heavenly father delivering
a message to his faithful with the
burning of Notre Dame, another 
manifestation of the presence of the
divine reminiscent of the burning bush
to recall all that is sacred and  holy
in the Christian creed when a Jewish
sage launched his Messianic presence
and the world has been in a state of
awe ever since? In this Passion Week
of the sacred calendar. Yet another well
crafted plot of many dimensions with
a single goal, to render unto the
transcendent power willing and
unwilling martyrs both. A display
of all the dread sins humankind so
excels in promoting. Other faithful
incited to surrender life, their own and
that of others in service to the heavenly
father; in his name rejecting and cursing
both the original and the iteration of
monotheistic obeisance by a third
claiming the imprimatur of authenticity.
News media and notables around the
world declare their solidarity and sorrow
for Sri Lanka. And none dare mention
the assailants' Islamist terrorist origins.

Within Ourselves

What if it does indeed exist
that fabled elixir of renewal the
ancients searched in vain to
discover, the fountain of youth
a futile dream its shimmering
promise of restoring life to an
enfeebled aging body when the
siren call of a lithe energetic
and comely appearance taunted
and teased and eluded. That was
then, this is now and the current
nomination for renewal's purpose
is indeed attainable; tenuous and
temporary true, for permanence
describes no living thing other
than hope. Memory has its varied
functions, among them the
enlivening of the senses able to
notify the brain and communicate
to the body infused with nostalgia
when music of one's younger days
stimulates an invitation to the
dance and you and he do just that
shedding the years and the rigours
of time as you clasp one another
bend and sway in graceful union.

The Complaint

Repeat: After . me . Oh no! Not
again? Twice in two weeks? I
really must speak to the cook. She
will not take it well, unfortunately.
However, it must be done for we
simply cannot have it that dinner's
soup was too peppery. To be fair
we do like our soup well peppered
but a soupcon of pepper will surely
do! Of course the cook herself 
enjoyed the soup, appreciated the
heat building up in her mouth.
Her husband did not. He who must
be pleased, after all. The cook has
been known to recommend her critic 
make an effort to display his talents
in the kitchen; she would laud and
appreciate his culinary skills. She is
not after all a capricious cook merely
casual in her preparations for
truth is all those years of cooking
and baking inscribed in her mind
the qualities and proportions of
various elements to produce a
pleasing taste and mostly she does
manage to succeed quite admirably. 
Hold the pepper, she will quietly 
admonish their wayward cook. 
He grins shamelessly. She curtsies.

Curiouser and Couriouser

Judge not? Can this perchance
give meaning and purpose to life?
Shallow, hollow though it might be
does it give comfort and satisfaction
to own a product not particularly
distinguished by great aesthetic
design but valued instead for its
purported rarity, exemplified by 
the fact that only a limited elite
whose finances allow them to expend
such extravagant sums for a durable
albeit pedestrian item such as a
handbag lends an air of studied
casualty as though to proclaim to
the world at large: this is mine
quite beyond your means, look and
admire, become envious, but though
you may aspire it will never be yours.
Unless somehow you fall into a
fortune and zealously lavish it without
regard to value and priorities. Do such
people ever realize the preponderance
of poverty in the world? Does charity
ever move them to action? Just asking
simply wondering, not sitting in
judgement of course. And isn't it
strange that cupidity rhymes with 
stupidity? Preening, posturing in
pathetic preoccupation with dross.

Inspiring Awe

As a truly inspired metaphor
for the sacred and the sublime
the purpose-built edifice in its
ancient and wise use of natural
resources of stone and wood
towered in its benevolent grace
over aspirations of those anxious
to meet the divine through those
intermediaries bringing people
close to the holy spirit they had
venerated from cradle to grave.
Its spire reached to the heavens
a gift of faith and beauty from 
humanity to their creator. The 
ancient cathedral inspired awe 
and a renewal of pledges for 
believers even as it drew others
with no personal investment in 
belief, thronging to its famed site
to admire form and not function
for its architecture spoke of 
human ingenuity and piety
one quality ascribed to ambition
the other to beatific exaltation.

Disquietude

Rituals. They are not to be discounted
with casual disregard. They are
habits acquired to make us feel
comfortable about and within our
lives. They establish order. They calm
our minds. They assure us that all
is well, that we must simply follow
these traditions we have established
and contentment is ours. They are
small but vital emotional tics of
reassurance. Extending weekly
supermarket shopping to include a
basket of food for the needy requires
little thought and a modest financial
outlay and it is soothing to the
fragile conscience. But then new
habits intervene like winter feeding
of local wildlife requiring purchase
of suitable edibles. The fragility of
determination to pursue such ritual
suddenly upset when another habit
of acquiring cash on your account from
the bank seemed unnecessary and you
found yourself over-extended by so
many sale items loading your shopping
cart and something had to go since you
are averse to credit cards for groceries.
What choice to make? What to return
to the shelves? Not the bag of kibble
for the raccoons, not the bargain prices
on cheese and chicken for your meals
so the sacrifice was non-perishables for
the food bank and you sink into a funk
telling yourself this ritual can skip a 
week; no one will know but yourself.

Serial Monogamy

It is a tale as ancient as humanity
legendary other than that it endures as 
a reality never to be banished from 
repetition within human society and 
her story is no cautionary tale but one 
while sordid also describes the emotions 
that impel men and women toward their 
destiny. They were young sharing a birth 
year. She emotionally mature and he 
forever catching up. Their marriage
ill-suited to principals too divergent
in temperament with two children all
too aware of emotional dissonance
a distance flinging him to the warm
embrace of a willing woman two
years senior to his daughter leading
to an irrevocable splinter as he
hobbled in guilt to a new beginning
and she descended into a chaos of
disbelief and loss. It is not true that
time heals all wounds. Hers suppurates
facing her replacement at the marriage
of her grandchild in the shattering
presence of the extended family.

 

That Which Is

The unique genius of nature has no
challengers for of what other force
can one say that without her unerring
hand nothing would exist anywhere
much less the mind of man who
studiously examines her products
admiring the precision of their
design, anxiously hoping to crack
their secret dimensions and living
in dire fear that she may some day
tire of her experiments and simply
abandon all that she has so stunningly
created to allow all to fall into decay
disinterested in the final shapes
the recycled minerals and chemicals
will take or whether the gigantic
wheels of nebulae that so amused
her during their formative stages
simply spin into a chaos of total and
final oblivion taking all with them
annihilating the energy and light
succumbing to a timeless chasm an
absolute vacuum while nature rests.

Returns of the Day

Returns of the Day

Happy Birthday to me.

I am now a half-century old. Isn't that compellingly stunning? Fifty years. What a mystery, where has it all gone? What have I got to show for all those years? Where is the happiness, the satisfaction? I am fifty years old. What have I accomplished? Above all, why does no one care?

I am friendless. I have no life companion. I am bereft of company, of the comfort of sharing my life with someone. Why, why is that my reality?

I am a decent person. I have a good heart. I know I do, I know I am. I have given more than ample thought to all of this. I am left with no answers, just more questions. These are questions I cannot answer. Answers elude me. Is there something about me that puts people off? Do I offend people by my personality, my character, my values and my choices?

If so, what I can I do about it? Why though would I want to do anything about it? What I present as is me, loud and clear. This is me, whatever my characteristics, my propensities, my inherited and my adopted flaws and properties. Doesn't the good in me outweigh what others may construe as the bad? Why am I left alone through life?

In the nature-and-nurture argument I began with many benefits. My genetic inheritance gave me physical attractiveness, and that remains, reflective of my age. I have carefully preserved my physical presence, just as I have groomed my psychological essence. I remain to the present time a physically attractive woman. I am a kind woman, I believe myself to be that, at the very least.

Other clear attributes are intelligence and an ability to get on well with people. Deep-seated and continually being accelerated for the former, a decided social facade of necessity on the latter account, reflective of most other peoples' public persona.

Since I invited my latest live-in disaster to leave, giving me instant, but short-lived relief, I discovered a transmission of disease that could eventually lead to cancer. I felt so betrayed, you cannot imagine how I raged with the injustice of it all. But the surgery was done, to cleanse me internally of the infection, and I've recovered physically. I was fearful about the surgery. I've never before had surgery, had to be admitted to hospital. I've been healthy, and that's because I look after myself. The very prospect of surgery infused me with terror.

I have been without work for a full year now. I have a household to maintain, a house to pay for, car payments, a multitude of bills to pay. The confluence of a downturn in the economy and a tightening of government expenditures meant the professional contracts with their generous remuneration as a contract worker were now denied me. That, despite my long record of professional work for a number of government departments. Of course, what remains a serious strike against my obtaining future contacts in this economic downturn is my lack of bilingual proficiency; that always seems to trump professional excellence.

In that time frame of no work I developed an Internet presence through a web site I spent hugely tedious and difficult hours designing and preparing for presentation, as an invitation to hire out my experience in another field; that of understanding and communicating successfully with animals, particularly domestic pets. Over the years I have gained an intimate understanding of how their minds work, how to communicate with them, how to dominate their instincts while still respecting their autonomy to an extent.

Teen-age girls can be so cruel. Even to their mothers. My own child belittled my efforts, spending too much time telling me to 'get a job', to 'go back to what you were doing', informing me that I was delusional in thinking I could earn a living through my animal-communication expertise. I was to return to the technical professionalism that had up until this point given me a reliable living wage according to her. As though that's all it takes. Kids know everything.

My parents gave me the impression they viewed what I was attempting to do with the same lack of respect. Although they had agreed to finance me while I was going through this period of instability. This was not what I envisioned for myself. That my parents would begin paying for all my expenses, straitening their own retirement income. My father warned me that the monies transferred monthly by him to my account represented the major portion of their income. As time went on and began to stretch toward a year, he became increasingly short-tempered.

That's typical of him. I was traumatized as a young girl by his gruffness, his demanding character, his anger when his expectations of me went unmet. My mother always acted as the buffer between us. But she had no greater confidence in me than my daughter, expressing the very same doubts with respect to my new initiative. I explained to her how tired I was of working for other people, of always being under someone's thumb, of having to negotiate the social miseries of peoples' jealousies and attempts to undermine my professionalism. I know that this kind of thing is a constant in most peoples' lives, but I was sick of it. I wanted to control more of life; myself, without being indebted to the good graces of people I hardly respected.

My mother insisted I had to get out more, that remaining isolated as I was doing was unhealthy for me. As though I wasn't aware. Yes, I grew increasingly depressed and miserable. Who wouldn't under those circumstances? Knowing that all the men you've ever been involved with while professing to love you really were interested in controlling and exploiting you. Not one of them ever made a decent living. Not one of them was an intellectual and ambition-led match for me. And that was fine with me. All I wanted was to be valued for myself, for what I am, to be cherished. Was that too much to ask for?

I have my companion animals. Two cats, eight rabbits, and ten dogs. Each of them is possessed of a singular personality, a loving, dependent presence. They mean the world to me. My daughter detests their presence, much as she did the presence of the men who temporarily shared our home. The animals represent an embarrassment and a nuisance to her, even though she is attached to most of them. She will no longer invite any of her friends over.

My erstwhile best friend who always confided in me when she had problems of her own that I commiserated with her about, is not there for me to unburden myself of my worries and concerns when I need her. She has become suddenly unapproachable. She did say she was intending to call me directly after my surgery, and did not. She did tell me it was her intention to have us get together to celebrate my birthday. What intention?

The morning of my birthday I was greeted first off by a disgruntled daughter leaving for school, grumpily calling out "happy birthday!" as she left the house for her bus. Nothing else from her. After school she spent the evening with a friend, at her friend's home. Can you even begin to imagine how anguished I feel, knowing no one cares about me? My parents, they say they care.

I don't want my parents' care. I want the care and love of someone with whom I could share my life. I've been abandoned by life. Surely I deserve better. Why is it that rotten, nasty, miserably selfish people have contented family lives, and I'm denied one? What is it that makes me so undeserving of happiness?

Why must I continue going through life utterly disconsolate, with not a living soul to share thoughts and experiences and aspirations with? I'm emotionally drained from crying myself to sleep.

Happy birthday, oh yes, happy birthday. Maude, my Australian Shepherd, left a huge pool of urine in her bed. So much for dogs never soiling their nests. She's six years old, it's not as though she doesn't know better. I haven't been sleeping at all well, lately. So the morning of my birthday I slept in, did not get up as usual to let Maude out before five in the morning. She cannot hold her bladder, never could. So that's what I did, first thing; cleaned up Maude's mess.

And then the others, the pack, began howling for attention. Some of them drive me insane sometimes with their unbridled demands. But even when I rail against them, I love them. They are the true constants in my life; demanding yes, but returning unblemished love to me.

I'm angry with my parents, and don't feel like speaking with them. Two days earlier my father went off on one of his tangents, telling me that eight months of supporting me and their grandchild has left them in a tight financial squeeze, and when was I going to get out and look for a job, any job? They could manage, he said, to supplement my income, but not remain forever the only support; I had to contribute.

As though this is something that hadn't occurred to me. As though I haven't been anguishing over this. As though I planned all of this. Accusing me in other words of being a succubus. If I learned something over the course of the years being their daughter, it was the necessity of standing up for myself. I hung up on him, and won't answer the telephone when they call.

Just as well we live an hour's drive distant from one another. I hate it when they visit. I feel constantly under pressure of scrutiny. As though they're just looking to comment on something to get me fed up with their presence. The feeling, I'm sure, is mutual; we just tend to exasperate each other. I told my mother it would be better if they didn't come by this week-end. I'd informed her earlier that I had no wish for them to get me a birthday gift, under the prevailing circumstances.

My mother sent me an email, wishing me "happy returns of the day". Happy? That's a word that is absent from my dictionary of life. I have never, ever known happiness. Others have, but not me. I have no companion, no one to care about me, no one to communicate with. I am completely alone.

What would I like for my birthday? Someone to hug me, to kiss me, to murmur their love for me. My mother cried when I told her this, she said she would do all of that and more. I don't want her to. That is not what I want, and she knows it very well. Even though I said too that I would like someone to prepare a meal for me, to bake me a birthday cake.

Happy birthday to me

Dredging The Mind

It seems to me it takes the precise
and niggling mind of an accountant
to enjoy crossword puzzles, they're
just not my idea of a fun challenge.
My choice is as a poll respondent and
my optimal specialty is politics where
I can vent my spleen at the stupidity
and cupidity of those whom a majority
vote into public office. But one takes
them as they come, sigh. Take as an
example one poll recently completed
an absolute bore leaving me in wonder
at the cunning design of the questions
seeking to establish popular response
to commercial issues of great import
and public impact to better serve the
public and derive huge benefit to the
everlasting bottom line of enterprise.
Questions as diverse as whether I 
invest my capital and when I respond
I do not, further probes whether I have
trust in my chosen investment adviser
and if not, select from given options
from expectations of fraud forward.
Ah, and whether I, a tea-imbiber choose
to frequent Second Cup, Starbucks or
Tim Horton's and how often despite
having denied ever drinking the brew.
Better yet, how often I shop at Walmart
and my level of satisfaction along with
queries of how better to serve customers
when my response has been nil, and
do I feel the stores are ill kept, the
employees rude ... well of course I do!

Reinterpreting Nature

In one minuscule corner of the Universe
sits Man the Wise, thinking, thinking...
Above and within the Universe hovers
Nature, the creator of all that exists
implacably manoeuvring her elements
raw and powerful. The ancients on
Earth knew as though a whispered
secret was divulged to them when their
minds were crafted that there is more to
heaven than Paradise; of a certainty
another place was reserved particularly
for those of their kind for whom evil
was irresistible. Thousands upon tens
of thousands upon millions of such
years have passed and the advent of
modern technology has fleshed out the
intuition of the early sages; their current
counterparts, astrophysicists identified
the Gates of Hell, a ring of gaseous
fire leading to a monumental energy
source irresistible to all matter within
its orbit, Nature's immense collector
of matter extraneous to her purpose 
in a timeless interval to seep into the 
greater vacuum that is space and time
there to assume new forms new purpose 
in the never-ending cycle of rebirth.

Marking Jews

It was another era, generations
ago when I was a child learning
so many complicated life lessons
among them to play on the street
alone, to walk across the street to
the school for classes and to be
startled and confused when other
children called out to me words
that made little sense but which
smouldered with menace. When
first heard the accusation Christ
Killer needed an explanation from
my father and afterward variations
on Dirty Jew needed no explication.
It is only now that I wonder how
I could be picked out from among
so many others living in the central
core of a city as different for in
my mind I looked just like any
other child of the time. Now I
fully understand that these curses
became a familial inheritance from
parent to child lest the fires of
hatred dim and expire. Now I know
that the child whose contempt for
what I am marked my life is the
adult who teaches their offspring
never to forget the vile presence of
Jews and to ensure they are marked.

Faith, Hope, Charity

They are, it appears to an observer
the feminine virtues held sacred
as though entrusted to the more
sensitive sex for whom the trinity
of faith, hope and charity represents
the salvation of humankind. It is
women after all whose generational
gift it is from nature to bear and
to nurture new life in whom is to
be instilled the will to repeat
the lessons of existence ad infinitum.
Mothers must have faith that their
tender offspring will experience
existence without deadly challenges
and in this they place their hope
in the charitable belief that 
life is in and of itself benevolent
to those to exhibit the traits of
courage, resilience and endurance
in the face of realities so unlike
the ideals resting in the bosoms of
women that peace and togetherness
can prevail and conflict avoided
with patience and conciliation.
That despite the experience of
reality faith, hope and charity
endure remains life's mystery.

Dinner Party

The perfect guest is punctual
appearing at the designated
hour at the appointed place
prepared to be grateful
polite and respectful to
his host for whose
appreciation he has taken
care to be well groomed
apparelled in immaculate
fashion on his very best
behaviour as he delicately
manipulates the selection
laid out for his gustatory 
pleasure to consume at leisure. 
The perfect host has taken care
to ensure his guest is well
served in kind and in measure
in return for the presence
of such a natural treasure.
A flattery reflecting the time
and thought invested ensuring
their mutual regard is never
without its crucial rewards.