Transformed

When we first knew her she was the
mother of two teen-age boys, a smiling
loquacious young woman companioned
at all times with a dog by her side. She
is a neighbour with whom we have some
things in common, a generation is not
one of them. Back then she was an
arresting sight, delicately formed, the
face of an angel framed by a cap of
curly red hair, so burnished in the sun it
seemed to crackle with fire, freckles
daintily dotting her cheeks. We have 
known her since then to have a succession
of three large-breed dogs, all devoted to
her and all resembling her as dogs are
wont to do their human companions for
their haircoats have all been that very
same shade of flaming red. From a long
distance we can discern her gait, rolling
from side to side, as she approaches for
that once-delicate conformation has assumed
astonishing proportions rather akin to that
of a dirigible. The slender proportioned
young woman has disappeared but the
infectious smile and bright, enquiring eyes
above all that flaming cap, they're there.

Garden Delirium

Well, hello there! I cannot tell you how
happy it makes me to welcome you back.
When we parted in autumn I felt, I assure
you quite disconsolate. I knew how deeply
I would miss you. How could it be after
all, otherwise? You were my constant
companion, day following day last summer.
We spent so much time together, enjoying
the freedom to appreciate all the moods
of nature. Fresh breezes, gentle rains
and constant sun made us beyond happy.
There is just so much I admire about you.
Your calm serenity, the colours you wear
and the shapes you assume. The fragrances
you affect, and those wonderful textures.
Not to mention the architecture of your
synchronized theatricals, putting on a show
beyond difficult to emulate without your
natural talents. Just to be in your presence
again is comforting and exciting at one and
the same time. Your incomparable beauty
sings to my soul. Our very private covenant
whereby my dedication to your well-being
results in your loyalty to my exhilarating
passion and pride links us inextricably.

Creatrix, Created

In the likeness of Nature made she him.
Male and female created she them, and
blessed them. So much are they in her
likeness that they can be kind or cruel
disinterested but fascinated, wise and
yet oblivious, mischievous and perhaps
cosmopolitan, gifted but crude; they in
her image are all of this and much, much
more. As she can be dangerous in failing
to note the actions of her elements and
their reactions on the whole of her creation
threatening destruction while her attention
is elsewhere, so too are her creations more
than capable of indulging their baser
instincts and themselves wreaking havoc
upon the world they inhabit, mindlessly
seeking to conquer that which is not 
theirs to control and to hold, and her
response can be a punishment beyond
anything her creatures can imagine for if
they possessed her attributes of timeless
creation their careless manipulation of
all they survey would surely destroy her.

Fleshly Envy

Fit to be worshiped, and they are, those 
teasingly idealized body shapes owned 
by those dedicated to that biological 
temple they so carefully nurture spurred 
by an undeniable urge to be admired and 
to love themselves as they could not 
possibly do should they surrender to 
popular habits which have ensnared the 
hordes who profess such adoration for 
the perfect body that celebrities, sport 
figures of acclaim carry everywhere with 
them in a pride of flawless physique and
form the owners find sufficiently rewarding
to ensure they happily suffer deprivation 
of food spontaneity in such a good cause 
as idolization. As for the social masses who 
would never dream of foregoing endless 
snacks day and night to complement the
pseudo-food they prefer they will go on
sacrificing their egos to the dilapidated 
fleshly form their food passion extracts for 
the sensuous pleasure of stuffing bodies 
already suffused with ample flesh while 
remaining fixated on the firm, smooth and
supple flexibility of their idols, each feeding 
on the repressed vanity of the alternate.

Yerushalayem

The world works in mysterious ways
to obstruct justice and challenge the
legitimacy of heritage as a reflection of
some strange pathology of mass psychosis
settling in perpetuity on a small group of
people known for their faith in monotheism
whose example gifted the world with two
theistic interpretations anxious to sever
their origin from the authentic original
for to pay homage to those whose origins
are so tightly wrapped in that original would
also require a massive shift in the regard
in which that tribe has been held since
time immemorial. Maligned, threatened
victimized and massacred the people still
endured, their strength of will restoring to
themselves their ancient capital to which
they had for thousands of years pledged
return to join those of their own who had
held fast to the fabled city of Jerusalem.
Little could they imagine that restoration
would be challenged in all corners of a
world long accustomed to hostile regard of
a people unbowed, proudly returning while
defending itself from military violence as 
they also fend off the intention to destabilize
their success as a nation upon whom the
dazzling light of triumph spurs the bleak
monster of envy in its countless detractors
determined to champion squatters' rights
over the incontestable heft of inheritance.

It's Spring!

Nature has outdone herself this spring.
As a perfectionist she has achieved
the perfect balance finally, the famed
Goldilocks formula whereby the
critic finds that her message lies
in the medium of her ordered universe
even in the infinitesimally minuscule
portion of that in which they reside
grateful for her reliability for not yet
has she ever relaxed her imperial
management of her creation. And so
this day has dawned absolute perfection
warm, balmy, sunny, breezy a little bit
of everything. And as we wander in
the woods along forest trails an utter
generosity of spring flowers erupted
from the leaf mass of the forest floor
arrests our attention just as the sight
of the scintillating rays of sun beaming
through the newly-leafed green canopy
illuminates spring's cornucopia of
shapes and colours and aromas from
blossoming trees. Who would not be
entirely enthralled by this spectacle?
Where rainwater sits in great ponds on
the floor of the forest incapable of any
longer absorbing the excess, perfect
habitat for mosquito larvae now matured
into ravenous pests alighting on bared
flesh as all nature's creatures celebrate.

Sentenced to Endure

He is by nature a recluse. An 
internal fury rots his soul. The
sociopath in him spurns human
contact. In an earlier era he would
have lived his life as a hermit as
far from human habitation as his
own penchant for reducing life
to the simplicity of no contact
with others reliant only on his
capacity to endure his very own
wretchedness in existence seen
by himself as a virtue and by others
as an unfortunate pathology as
close to unadulterated misanthropy
as conceivable. Which is just how
very strange it is that he was
somehow induced to marry a
woman whose bright outlook on
life must surely over the decades
have dimmed in the corrosion of
intimacy with this man. She still
smiles but has abandoned all
pretense that life is a journey of
great promise. It has become for
her as it was for him a struggle to
endure the negatively unendurable.


 

The Forest Silence

In the cool, green shaded serenity
of the woodland trails her presence
is an anomaly, as though a gnome
has come suddenly to full attention
striding the pathways upon emerging
from the forest interior. Affecting an
all-season cape, lank auburn hair
reflecting that of her well-tempered
dog she is heard long before she
hoves into view impairing the silence
comforting the unwary. Others may
listen for the staccato of woodpecker
activity, the shrill call of a bluejay
the lilting paean of a cardinal and
the scolding of a red squirrel at all
trespassers into nature's habitat for
the wild untamed but she listens to
the cacophony of sound emitted by
her digital music selection, earbuds
firmly screwed into place, her sturdy
figure barrelling along oblivious to the
presence of wildflowers and butterflies.
Anything can happen in a forest and
though one must be there to hear a 
tree as it falls, any could crash against
the trail as she passes, never heard
nor would she be heard of again.

The Diplomat

Hard to tell whether it is merely
stupidity or truly hubris that seems
to invest some authority figures with
the belief that they are endowed with
the fabled wisdom of Solomon such
that they gravely intone an opinion
none are assumed to gainsay in the
expectation that a problem vexing
the world for untold generations is
suddenly, through the generosity of
his advice, solved. Why no one ever
thought of simply surrendering the
ancient struggle for autonomy against a 
regional power accustomed like the
sage above to demanding that those
whose ancestral land he has absorbed
in a grandiose capture to boost his
territorial ambitions puzzles this man
whom owing to his position all are
meant to regard as a conciliator of 
strained aspirations and aggrieved status
of historical deprivation by the powerful.
The morally injured and deprived grit
their teeth in the face of such wisdom
gravely advising they surrender to
the inevitable, and get on with their
agenda knowing none but they are
the least bit moved by their plight.


 

The Gardener's Ego

An intruder, an interloper, a decidedly
unwelcome presence in a place where
the inhabitants feel, with justice, I
have no place to be. All of those 
descriptives apply to the gardener
anxious to get on with the work at hand
in actual fact for the committed and so
dedicated homebody who loves to feel
the crumbly, manipulable soil and smell 
its rich fecundity, digging manically
into its damp promise with the ferocity
of selfish satisfaction that spring has
arrived and blooms cannot be far behind
and in the feverish action suddenly
there appears squirming from the depths
of the soil just disturbed a fat, wiggling
worm so essential to the organic matter
performing its magic awakening the
garden perennials and receiving the
annual bedding plants. Did the spade
sever the worm, or is it whole? A 
slight spasm of concern, a momentary
pause and the conviction that this is my
garden, the worm only renting a plot
so whatever befalls the unwary is sad
and the world must turn as it will.


 

Local Wildlife

Time and exposure, you see, does that.
We have become friends. There is
a certain element of trust and of
course familiarity. Neither it nor I
have ever experienced hostility
one from the other. On my part there
is appreciation that a creature of
quite another species can in its very
own way communicate with me if
it wishes. We have also exchanged
visits to one another's habitats. The
raccoon's in the nearby forest where
he is seldom at home when I venture
there. And he at all hours of the
day and night, along with his many
companions, large and small, old
and young they come calling.
Granted not to confer with me but
rather to graciously consume all
that I offer for their convenience on
my readily accessible porch where
they seem to find comfort in the
offerings during winter months and
now in spring when I have doubts
they really need the help but am 
so fond of their presence their treats
are laid out for their pleasure and
mine, a kind of cross-species dance.

 Dreams

It is you but perhaps not after all. Your
voice, your thoughts, your unique way of 
perceiving, observing, drawing conclusions
yet what conclusion can you draw from
this? Is it you, or is it someone else that
you subconsciously portray. And why
stop at just two personas, perhaps when
we view films and empathize with the
principal individual sympathetic to our
own concerns we are in reality emulating
albeit with complete oblivion what we
live through. Perhaps we have been
created with multiple personalities
reflecting multiple individuals not all
of whom are recognizable much less
visible, one dominant actor in view as
others hover discreetly awaiting their turn 
revealing themselves in a nightly drama
not devised by you but precipitated by
the interim we know as sleep. Do we
dream we are actors managing a stranger's
episodic appearance for surely that is not us
not who we are, unrecognizable and hugely
at variance with our concerns and values
an intruder our unconscious selves civilly
tolerates. But they are intruders with no
entitlement we know of and nor must we 
tolerate their presence yet we are helpless 
to deny them entry to our night dreams.

Margaret

Wraithlike, she toddles uncertainly
down the street, her silhouette
so transparent she is almost not
there. She hesitates .. stops .. moves on
and I watch as she approaches
then step from my garden toward
her calling her name and she
halts, a wan smile passing across
her wrinkled face looking painfully
frail. Quickening her step she
holds wide her arms and we embrace.
I hug her to me, this pathetic figure
of kind intent, feeling birdlike
bones layered in clothing more
substantial than the body they cover.
Like prisoners in winter houses
neighbours, even those living on
nearby streets long familiar with one
another rarely move about on icy
snow-laden landscapes. A fall she
took back then somehow affected
her mobility but spring has now
arrived in its tentative teasing way
and even Margaret has responded.

And In Summation

Surely it represents a gross perversion 
of language, sensibility and intelligence
to refer to a religion spread by the
sword intent on worldly conquest and
the spoils of war to refer to itself as the
religion of peace insofar as Islam views
itself as the home of peace while all
others religions become perforce regions 
of war. To bend to coercion, threats
intimidation, persecution is the Islamic 
path to divine salvation. Little wonder 
the world of thinkers of rational beings 
look askance and with no little skepticism 
at the overwhelming pervasiveness of
thuggishness in an all-consuming ideology 
professing to sacred adherence to the 
word of its god that sends its faithful out 
into the world to wreak havoc, sow terror
commit bloodshed in a time-dishonoured 
tradition of mayhem, massively disrupting 
the rhythms of ordinary life for unassuming 
people themselves innocently paying due 
homage to the Messenger and obeisance 
to his luminous master finding themselves
vilified, attacked and massacred for an
insufficiently devoted grasp of Islam. As
for all others not yet declaring their
undiluted loyalty, accursed, deserving
of death, those who balk at 'submission'
to a pathological concept of a higher
being of malice aforethought, to them
go out fatwas inciting heroic warriors of 
Islam to their targets and their rewards.

The Rain Jacket

This rain jacket is no candidate for
sartorial pride, it ranks as a cast-off
a rather time-worn and work-beaten
garment whose choice as a favourite
leaves one wondering why, but then
the wearer appreciates that though it
has been torn through the years and
chemical spills have wrought their
particular damage, it remains more
than serviceable and long, wide
swatches of bright orange tape manage
to ensure there are no further frays to
its integrity as a questionable but
whole yellow rain jacket. In its favour
the wearer recites its estimable qualities
of rain-shedding properties, deep
pockets in which to store bits and
pieces that may some day come in
handy for a handy-man who practised
that type of utility since he was a child.
And not to overlook a useful beaked
hood for those heavy downpours, and
for particularly cold days, a dark felt
lining to add warmth to the comfort
of a dry haven, so why need it be
considered so casually dispensable?
Of course it's an attention-getter, one
that elicits comments from all and
sundry, a conversation piece, an item
of clothing unconventional and unique.

Girding Israeli Resolve

In civilized circles those who threaten
the mortal existence of others are viewed
as pathological psychopaths, pariahs whose
words warning of imminent annihilation
must be viewed not merely theoretical in
nature for an entire community of people
living in a nation representing sanctity for
those who have suffered thousands of years
of deadly persecution and the spoilation of
their original homeland are deemed to have
suffered sufficiently, their future clearly
pointing to surcease and the earned right to
peace. History has proven however that time
and again the hypothetical unthinkable has a
way of becoming reality. Given more than
ample warning with searing promises of
destruction the targeted community has on
occasion preempted the plans of their
tormentors by destroying their means of
military attack. Two nations sharing their
geographical allotment in a finite area
one intent on preserving itself the other
focused on extermination driven by a theist
command and a thirst for conquest. With
few options remaining it appears sufficiently
clear that preemptive action is once again
on the horizon to teach the lesson that
hate-filled rhetoric presaging the intent
to destroy engenders the right to defence.

On The Forest Floor

Avidly awaited, her appearance
a cause of great excitement
like any star of the stage - spring
enters capriciously, flaunting her
beauty yet vexingly ever the tease
hides it behind a veil of nature's
elements calling on wind to haul
ragged grey clouds over heaven's
canopy to dampen enthusiasm
overwhelmed by unceasing rain
just occasionally signalling the
sun to appear glowing over the
renewed landscape as incentive 
for grateful spring flowers to make
their appearances emerging from
the fecund soil to delight spring
welcoming her to the landscape
as coltsfoot, trout lily, trillium
and lily-of-the-valley, and the
nodding-head Jack-in-the-pulpit
stage their entry among violets
run amok on the forest floor.

Querying, Lord

You may perhaps choose to
excuse the familiarity in tone by
which you are addressed though
sacred is your name but I feel as
though I know you and so I should
since from the earliest days your
name has been spoken with such
reverence yet as one in whom
much trust is given. So I trust
you will allow me to relieve
myself of a puzzling question
which I have no doubt many of
your faithful before me have raised
and to that effect I wonder why it
is that a creator so loving of his
chosen people has burdened them
so heavily in their service to him 
leaving them to persevere to endure
the unendurable as he stands by
his own witness to annihilation of
generations. This as a culmination
of millenniums from the ancient world
to the present where a devoted people
disenfranchised of all held dear in
fact promised by their maker for
time immemorial feeling forsaken
utterly forlorn yet stubborn as they
deign not to forsake their trust in you 
who permitted another return to 
Zion once again threatened by a 
world dedicated to their own focus 
on the total destruction of all your 
people, Lord. How much and when 
will you deem enough enough?

The Spoils in Perpetuity

Death is final. What do reparations
signify to the uneasy ghosts of
those who were victims of
genocide? They cannot return
to resume their lives to take
possession of all that they owned.
They cannot stand in a court of
international law to confront
their murderers. They can haunt
the conscience of those who 
might have resisted while the
victims endured the unspeakable.
But the perpetrators had not one
iota of conscience then and nor
have they now, they and their
successors who now cry !foul!
when the survivors of mass
imprisonment, slave labour, torture
the wholesale deprivation of a
life of normalcy timidly plead
for their property to be returned.
For those who took no part in
the extermination of lives took
swift action in appropriating to
themselves whatever the victims
owned with no intention then of
ever returning it and none now.

Our Play

Ours is a directionless play
produced by chance
the scenes forever changing
as remote to those about us
as the stars above.
As a binary ever-revolving
compact eternal we
move through the days
always together 
for what else
and how other
to exist but to complement
one another? Our common
past the answer to our
current union. In my
firmament my love
you are the lode-star. 
Come, dance with me.

The Aqueous Forest

Rain has brought mist to the forest
a grey veil smooth and soft its
moist warmth lending a semi-opaque
screen to the landscape while
imbuing the forest green in delicate
shades, a pale watercolour version
of its spring vibrancy as the forest
canopy and its understory begin to
recall and long for their former glory
bursting with summer verdance where
goldfinches and song sparrows alight
and vibrate the air with their lilting
song. Now, in the pale gloom of a
sky brimming with dark clouds the
prolonged, mournful hoot of an owl
perched on an overhead branch jutting
over a wildly rushing creek coursing
at the bottom of the ravine wherein
the forest sits. Then a languid silence.
Rain begins once more to penetrate
the forest fastness drumming on
tree trunks, creating concentric waves
on widening pools steaming on the 
forest floor, drowning fallen seed pods
creating rivulets of mud rushing down 
the hillsides to inundate the creek 
upstream from the river beyond the forest. 
And.then.it.stops. The atmosphere suffused 
with rain brightens as the sun briefly
emerges and the rain resumes, both sun
and rain together greeting the sodden
forest. A forest that breathes and thrives.

Hidden Lives

What mother's heart wouldn't swell
her eyes glow with pride at the very
thought of her accomplished son for
whom praise of the highest order has
followed his exemplary academic
and professional career as a gold 
medalist at medical school graduation
author of countless medical articles
now a pioneer in neurosurgery. How
to add to this mother's exalted view of
a son beyond praise whose wife also
a respected physician with their three
young beloved children? Who would 
have the heart to explain that her pride 
and joy in life wears a Janus face
other than the judge who has now
sentenced this extraordinarily gifted
man to a life sentence in prison for
murder because Mohammed Shamji
will no longer abuse his wife having
broken neck and ribs then strangled
her to death, their children peacefully
sleeping nearby. Thoughtfully packing
his wife in a suitcase before leaving
for a day's surgery he planned to get
on with his life, and now he will 
elsewhere than in an operating theatre
despite the testimonials from fellow
physicians attesting to extraordinary
talent of one who performed over a
thousand complex life-saving surgeries
surely balancing out the violent
savagery of annihilating one life of
a woman who served him with divorce
papers unwilling to tolerate ongoing
misery and physical violence at the
hands of this superior-rated genius.

The Sectarian Divide

Homo sapiens in the learned language
of Latin otherwise known as 'wise man'
habitually demonstrates traits removed
a fair distance from what man-the-wise
might be expected to produce in the
best interests of humanity's survival
none the least of which is tolerance
for all of those who inhabit the globe.
Cerebral functioning of the highest order
granted by nature in the creation of man
in the mistaken belief that wisdom would
control emotions veering from concern
for others to its extreme of murderous 
malevolence toward others not of their
own group and as such clearly unfit for
continued life. A neutral consciousness
might be puzzled that mass adaptation
of the species to belief in a superior being
responsible for all creation would imbue
the faithful with the spirit of tranquility
and peace. But faith sources abound and
in their abundance become anathema to
differentiated adherents all of whom speak
in reverent tones of godliness and peace
yet never fail to embark on missions to
degrade belief in the other's obvious error
in judgement whose punishment is death.

All In Good Time

The agenda is hers. Hers the blueprint
and hers the ritual of endless cycling
for all that exists is of her essence and
design, faultless and exquisite even
the ephemera of transitory existence
nothing wasted, everything that she has
produced eternally shapes and shifts
degrades and is reconstituted over
uncountable ages of which time is but
a mirage. Yet we in our illusionary
view as her master design feel ourselves
entitled to critique and to rail and to
fault the architecture of the universe
down to the very last microscopic
detail found in our microsphere of
existence imagining ourselves the apex
of creation, the very final and most
complex of all organisms, an intelligence
so refined there are no challenges to our
mastery of all we survey. Yet it is nature
whose creation is infinite and divine
we but arrogant disputants arrogating to
ourselves claims of cerebral powers 
equal to the designs of the mistress of
creation. She who benevolently permits
humankind to enter her laboratory as a
visitor until such time as that presence
becomes an invasion, the consequences 
a wholesale expulsion, existence denied.

Be Thou Aware

When terrorists assure the world
that fear of death does not
detain them from their goal to
deliver those final gasps of life
bringing death to others
and nor do they themselves
shirk the invitation to abandon
life for the greater treasure
of Paradise where the existence
they envision is one of heroic
welcome chorused by a bevy
of beautiful virgins they speak
their Islamist indoctrinated reality
and the Angel of Death most
certainly loves his favourite
enablers yea, unto death itself.
No one immune to that dread and
unexpected introduction to the
final moments whether rich in
good deeds or lucre irrespective of
caution taken to avoid its bleak
ending of a life unfinished. Death's
stalking  horse wears a burnoose
identifying origins and ancient tribal
customs fleshed out by theistic
imprecations spurring the faithful
to seek peace by pleasing Death.