January Thaw

The Sky has rained frozen tears
for days, mourning the passage
of yet another year, bringing
us closer to old agedness.
How peculiar its empathy, for
we feel no such sorrow.

As we move through the woods
they too weep, but their grief
expresses their loss of twigs,
branches, limbs brought to
the snow-cushioned ground
with weight of snow and ice.

Tree trunks are glassed with ice
swaddling. The day mild enough
so droplets of melt move under
the ice sheathing like dark bugs
crawling down the trunk.

Finger-thick ice has brought
green boughs to utter decline
littering the forest floor. Above,
silently cruises the dark form
of a lonely crow. No wind, but
damp air and vanishing ice fog.

The sky, a bright pewter awning
has relented, halted its freezing
assault, and presents slivers of blue,
and there, the struggling sun. The
weeks-long frozen creek has
won its reprieve, runs free, burbling. 

Evolution

Evolution

A delicate creature she was
bones like a bird
little beak of a nose
voice trilling her welcomes.
If bird she was, a cardinal.
Flaming plumage she had,
her burnished fly-away hair
trailing her exquisite face.

Her body small and neat,
in its way sturdy enough
to take her to motherhood.
She’d also two dogs large
as she was not; golden retrievers
whose haircoats echoed hers.
Her constant companions
roaming through woodlands.

These creatures revolving about
her as though in an orbit
about their nurturing star.

Gone now, her companions
even as her children have
fled the coop she devised for them.
The children entering their futures,
the animals overtaken by their
finite life spans into oblivion.

While her future lies yet
yawning before her. She has become
as the sun, an orb of substantial
proportions, her hair still
flinging bright rays into the
atmosphere. Her petite features,
half hidden now beneath her
evolved gaseous rotundity. 

The Short Story

The Short Story

Not very enlightened
nor expressively creative,
but most certainly qualified
as a short-short story.

About life in general
and an evaporated passion
in particular degree
well beyond rescue.

They met, they tarried.
Sharing the veneer of
common interests
but not, alas values
and cultural background.

He as disinterested in hers
as she in his. Still, they married
and celebrated a scant few
years of mutual neglect
and growing revulsion.

Though neither would
offer the other release from
tension and aggravated
bitterness in expectations
drowned in grievance.

Theirs was a story
abbreviated by his final
solution. Her ultimate demand
answered by his final decision.
He did not attend her funeral.

Inflicting upon him
recrimination and blame
that only a faithless woman
is capable of wounding a man by;
her final act to seal his future.

The Silence of Snow

The Silence of Snow

Wind spurts fierce thrusts compelling
the snow to drift languidly and
mound into voluptuous landscapes
while evergreen boughs heavy
with snow release great clumps
themselves springing to height.

Lazy clouds of snow drizzle
the landscape. Falling clumps freckling
the grey sky, shifting clouds to
pleasure the insistent sun. Shafts
of light haze through the forest,
firing the snow to silver crystals.

Through the soft and gentle
stillness, the staccato of a hairy,
red-capped woodpecker. Snow
generously comforts a recently-bereaved
copse of elm, maple and poplar,
naked no longer. Trunks grey,
black and brown stippled
gloriously-blinding white.

Desiccated, bright orange bittersweet
fruit cluster along their vines'
chokehold on prickly Hawthorns.
Their haws shy against the
flamboyance of the others.
The creek drifts clear and tinkling
over gathered fall detritus
now heavily banked in snow.

A raven crosses the undecided sky,
its raucous call shredding the silence
swift body a black arrow true to its mark.
Soon, snow-muted silence regains
its imperious reign.

November Snow

November Snow

The sky a brooding bowl of
whipped cream slopping frostily
over the landscape newly
preparing itself for the season.

Limning shrubs, tree branches
with an exquisitely delicate
etching of snow blooming
in the gloom of another
onset of urgent winter.

A lacy tapestry of puffed fluff
weighting branches, laid over
trails, muting sound though
there are no birds anywhere.

They are suddenly absent,
the forest a hushed
huddling of small, furred creatures
seeking winter refuge.

The soft, mouse-grey sky
canopies the landscape
lavishly curvaceous with
buoyant snow from yesterday's
blizzard that brought a
mesmerizing disquietude
to Nature's humble creatures.

An icy chill has asserted
over the land, settling into winter.
The orb of the sun gleams softly,
intermittently casting tender
beams of light to highlight
here and there the track
of a hare, the wingspread
of some night-time hunter.

Malevolently-driven winds
harnessing the weather to
an ultimate degree of dislocated
anarchy prevails. Hurling itself
at all that presume to present
in its imperious path. Now
settled into a moderately
persistent presence.

Groaning, moaning, clacking
forested tree tops. Toppling
snow drifts sitting on tree stumps
like ice cream on their cones,
the bundled snow falling softly
creating a landscape of its very own.
The creek streams silently onward
its banks softened in silver sides.

Fall malingerers are placed
on notice; stay, and surrender
to an unaccustomed harshness
of climate in degrees and ferocity
you've not been equipped to surmount.
If survival is your goal - take flight!

Only At Christmas

It is now all so familiar as to be formulaic
no need to consider what to select, it's all 
been done endlessly before and each time 
the collection faithfully reflects what has 
been deposited before in a routine that takes 
no real thought. True certain things have 
changed where in the early years careful
circumspection played a role in obedience 
to a limited budget but that is no longer a 
concern as gradually as the years went by 
amount and nutritional quality in reflection 
of the need to collect non-perishables rose 
in lock-step with our finances. Today our 
weekly grocery shopping fell on the day of 
Christmas Eve and the bag in my shopping 
cart to set those items apart from what is 
meant to service our own kitchen received 
the usual items of high-in-nutritional value 
protein, fats and carbohydrates, no-nonsense 
foods like tins of fish, of meat, of beans and 
boxes of noodles and cheese were bundled
neatly for deposit in the supermarket's Food 
Basket collector. Approaching it to deposit 
my offering, a sight never before seen where 
most often a paltry few bags like mine sit
forlornly few and far between whereas this 
day a mountain of donations sat awaiting 
pick-up for distribution to this area's 
dependently vulnerable of all ages who are 
food deprived, just in time for Christmas. 
My eyes swivelled to those of another old 
woman as we sighed with the sentiment of 
'only at' Christmas, mouthing our regretful
chorus of 'if only'. If only society's helpful
charity net was unneeded; if only society
responded in all seasons for the right reasons.

The Goal And The Failure

The human spirit is such a fragile instrument 

of nature so readily succumbing to the passion 
of emotions from which rational judgement flees
knowing there can be no cerebral intervention 
possible  to contain either of the elemental 
emotions near yet so far from the echo chamber
of love and hate. The angels of our better natures 
sit by dejectedly in the stifling atmosphere of 
suspicion, victimhood and hatred giving birth 
to threats and violations of humanity's most 
coveted prize; to love and be loved. Perhaps they 
are able to parse the moods and emotions that 
drive particular elements of the social order to 
fray its edges spreading rumour and innuendo in
a concerted regime of devaluing and slandering 
the vulnerable, in the process finding satisfaction 
in the dark dungeon of hatred. A mystery to those 
who seek the light, attuned to the sweet fragrance
of love given and returned completing a life
cycle of certain value, leaving the haters to 
discover their purpose in the venom that courses 
through their meaningless lives in the process
irredeemably corrupting the legendary holy
grail of poets and lovers of a life well lived.

 

Photos

They are a multitude numbering
the days of your life as indispensable
to memory and affairs of your heart
as each of the living souls that look
back at you captured by the camera
lens when you directed the theatrics
of a pose and when spontaneous snaps
were taken at the most inauspicious of
times to record and record and record
and then as incidents faded in time
tucked deep in the furthest recesses of
memory set aside and the images so
neatly captured in photographs grew
in number while dimmed in the past
until on impulse retrieved surprising
you with the sudden jolt of acquaintance
as recognition and yearning tugged 
loose the memories and that which was
lived returns to dredge tears from a
place of mourning you hardly knew
might even exist to live another day.

The Winter Feeder

They arrive quietly, politely
winging in sometimes singly
in pairs or within a flock
always grateful for winter
hospitality we are so happy
to offer them, in our plenty
and their need to survive
as best they can when nature
and the elements deprive
them of ease in foraging.
The blue jays of the northern
forest, the chickadees and
nuthatches, hairy and downy
woodpeckers, cardinals, doves
juncos all flock in during
daylight hours, with hordes
of quarrelsome squirrels and
nighttime raccoons and rabbits
honouring us with their
presence and their need.

Girded For Life

Life is full of surprises, many exciting
and joyful, which should discount the
misery imposed by those that 'take us by
surprise' and for which we are never, ever
prepared. A signal lesson in life from early
years to maturity is that though we are
gregarious creatures, like generally is
comfortable with like, a primitive emotion
that has stood the test of time, from a time
when being with others like yourself was
insurance for survival. Humankind has
since then evolved, but not to the point
where that timeless test of welcoming to
your hearth strangers whose customs fail
to echo yours is guaranteed. Certainly as
civilized creatures we claim ourselves to be
unreservedly uncritical of others even while
experiencing rejection because we are unlike
others. But then of course reality is that
people will be as they are absent an inner
struggle to improve what they are, and no
one can seriously convince the experienced
others will appreciate your exceptionality
as your mother always did. The moral of the
story is social amity without flaunting traits
that set one apart or a heritage and values
your very own. Own them and take pleasure
in them but secure them from open view.
The plain truth is others don't really care
prepared to accept you at face value just as
they trust you will them. And those whose
world view is their way or no way illustrate
an intemperate character far best avoided.

Male/Female She Created

The 'mother' of all that exists, Nature is less
a perfectionist than she is an inspired and
sometimes reckless experimenter dedicated
to trial and error with a truly impish sense of
humour. Having designed the ultimate creation
with a brain struggling to compete with her own
ineffable genius, she also gifted that creature
with the pleasures of procreation and conferred
upon it a binary reality infusing one half with
the attributes of motherhood the other left with
the endowment of an instinct for the hunt and
so they evolved man-the-source-of-sperm and
woman welcoming the outcome in her gifted
womb. In all her creatures was this gift of
creation proffered; those in the air, in the seas
in the trees and on land with the occasional
misfiring of neurons and confusion of genetics
to a place where males imagine themselves
females and females certain they are males
disrupting the order of Nature's deliberations
though in point of fact it is she herself whose
attention occasionally and infamously lapses
into distractions that confuse the formula.

The Sterling Citizen

He is an upright and valued member of his 
community, let there be no doubt. He has 
worked hard all his life and done very well
thank you. And on the way to reaching his 
senior years this octogenarian has made many 
friends for he has never refused to lend himself 
to a favour for anyone who asked and many
according to his accounting had, have and 
ostensibly will, and he will never disappoint. 
He is himself  however a disappointed man 
that his qualities are so little recognized that 
he could be arrested and charged with a criminal 
offense. He whose sense of justice is so robust 
that he once on a highway signalled a police 
officer to pull over which he obligingly did
thinking his services were being called upon
whereupon the reason was revealed when he 
was then subjected to a bitter tirade that officers 
of the law are obligated to respect the law and
so why was he speeding? There is little doubt
that this story of upright justice found a ready
audience on more than one occasion. So it is 
really, really unfair, unjust, uncommonly nasty 
that just because he happened to be trucking a 
load of thousands of illegal cigarettes he was 
targeted, his truck impounded and he now faces 
trial. The moral of the story being that age alone 
does not confer wisdom for it is experience 
that age brings and those who choose not to 
use their experience as a lesson learned to 
garner wisdom are doomed to complain how 
unfair life is, from the ignominy of a prison cell.

Mothers, Daughters, Wives

That unbreakable bond between mothers
and their daughters, that emotional attachment
that is passion and pride blemished by struggle
but leavened with love. They are attuned to
the defense exchanged from mother to her
daughters in the early years, from daughters to
their mothers in the later years nourishing both
their souls. Yet those bonds can be cracked and
crushed when men intrude and assume command
under guise of religion's demands of hierarchy
where women become subordinate to the will
of men their independence and will of purpose
suborned, denied. Power and prestige and
honour falls to men. To women submission.
Through this lens of reality in the cultural
order of theocratic-ruled societies motherhood
reflects the will of men demanding daughters
be chaste and modest, home-bound creatures
whose physical features from head to toe are
not to be viewed by lascivious males in the
public arena. Where defiant daughters dishonour
their fathers, their grandfathers, their brothers
their uncles and the price to pay is steep to wash
away unforgivable sins. If mothers weep it is deep
within, while they plot with their men to wipe
clean the slate of familial dishonour, expunging
disobedient daughters from life and memory.

Winter Arras

Yesterday the wind bellowed through the
forest, whipping snow from branches while
birds fled and animals shivered in their burrows.
Today -- ah today, the wind has transformed
itself from threat to avuncular host whispering
welcome to those who tread the forest pathways
portraying itself as meek and companionable
speaking the language of comity and friendship.
Yet something lingers in the woodland interior
of yesterday's hostility when the surly wind
sent penetratingly icy fingers of painful cold
to remind all that huddled in trepidation and
fear that its power is unlimited and occasional
episodes of theatrical bonhomie do not define
its entire repertoire. Even while the mild and
orderly gusts ruffle the feathery snow dusting
remaining on boughs and branches there is an
aura of disquiet. Dusk has arrived too soon in
heralding night's imminence when under cover
of a black night the wind can plot new excesses
to terrorize its tender victims hoping to survive 
winter's misery. For the meantime a collective
sigh is released from the forest as the heavens
liberate their treasury of translucent crystals 
their inner sparkle brilliantly lighting the sky.

The Human Condition

How appalling it is to know that in many 
countries of this great wide world people live 
in squalid, hopeless conditions of extreme
poverty facing institutionalized discrimination
due to ethnicity, religion and social conditions
of long cultural tradition where distrust and
viral hatred between tribal groups and minorities
fosters threats and civil strife and food shortages
threaten alongside lack of health care where
raging epidemics of deadly diseases due to
lack of sanitation compromise the longevity
of those unfortunate enough to be citizens.
And how fortunate those others are who live
in civilized societies whose economies ensure
employment and whose constitutions pledge
sanctity of the individual and equality of
opportunities, if not outcomes. Where the
assurance of a plentiful food supply, housing 
and universal medical care fulfills peoples' 
basic needs of ample water and energy and 
schooling where offsprings' aspirations to 
succeed in life can be realized. There, where 
human rights are respected by custom and by 
law and where human potential is encouraged. 
Bedeviled by the presence of addictions, by 
homelessness and despair. Where children are 
stalked by pedophiles. The homeless and the 
hungry kick pride aside and public food banks 
distribute donations to the needy. And where 
domestic violence creates the necessity of 
public shelters whose security and capacity is 
never quite accommodating enough to solve 
the endemic issues of humanity's incapacity 
to govern itself credibly as a civilization.

Snow Imprint

Snow Imprint

The forest floor, well on its way
to freezing - encouraged, bullied
by impending winter's
dominion over land
and inland waterways...

Those ferocious icy blasts
have brought new, permanent
snow, covering that rigid floor.
Snow flurries pause lazily in
downward spiral toward
winter's certain depths.

Wind whips bare branches.
The scarlet head of a woodpecker
brutalizing the trunk
of an ancient pine, shards flying
reveals a wide, white gap;
the bird rewarded for its
destructive industry.

Clouds catapult their spare
contents with diminishing returns
as an insistent gust sweeps them
imperiously aside to reveal
an azure promise.

Beams of modest brilliance
modified by the season
yet still sufficiently solared
illuminate a child's
luminous snow-angel.

 He Pleases Me So

When we were young a lifetime ago
I was the one who trusted and he was 
the cynic and I was forever remonstrating
with him, irked that his attitude might very
well turn people away misunderstanding
the person within the skeptic's facade yet
it was no facade and he remains to this
very day the cynic he once was. What
has changed is the loving person within
has found the courage to face the realities
of life while I become discouraged and
always in need of his smile that never
fails to meet my face turned toward him. 
He pleases me so. In our tight clasp of
one another we have grown old together
with grace and thanksgiving. And though
we are decidedly reserved, it has become
his view of others that empathy is an
emotion to bring to the service of those
whose circumstances demand it. And so
I witness time and again his gruff voice
soft, his arms so accustomed to circling 
me, hugging others reeling from wretched 
blows of fate; an elderly woman bereft of 
her dog's companionship, a wan neighbour 
whose health has noticeably deteriorated
a confused child briefly separated  from a 
parent, the presence of animals, insects 
and birds gently moved from areas of traffic 
to natural shelter. Our intimate recognition 
of each others' characteristics has melded 
us as though we are one entity yet time and 
again this man introduces me to another 
facet of his being and I an suffused with 
gratitude for his warm embrace of life.

2019 British Brexit

Was ever a people so detested, their
presence decried, their suffering on the
stage of the world so well documented
their numbers modest but accomplishments
so numerous none others are capable of
matching their influence in philosophy
medicine, science, music, literature and
the arts yet even so they are viewed as
utterly detestable; attributable to them as
an unsavoury group a hunger for world
domination in politics, finance, control
of news, all the while monopolizing attention
as the world is riveted by accusations they
savour the blood of babies not of their own
to moisten unleavened flour. Accusations
abound, none too trivial or outrageous to
hang around their collective necks as 
exploiters and monsters who poison wells
never failing to collaborate with fascists
bringing calamitous results in social engineering
on vulnerable populations whose suffering is
so obviously their fault. Their defenders have
been few but notable for the nobility of 
their embrace of justice. That the vaster
majority of a population feels justification 
in pillorying that tribe represents the single
greatest regret of the persevering targets.

Irony

I was certain I knew what irony was
exemplified by my discussion with an old
acquaintance about built-in obsolescence
in major household appliances manufacturers
feel should last for a decade of use and then
replaced. Perhaps more discretion might have
helped rather than boasting my stove was
a quarter-century old and my dishwasher
just behind it. A week later !kaput! I was 
washing dishes by hand and I've been treating 
my stove with kid gloves ever since. And then 
I read that India is reeling under a cycle of 
drought and inundation with rain events so 
severe massive flooding results, but the 
monsoon timing traditionally relied upon 
for crops to flourish and come to harvest 
are no longer reliable and despite horrendous
amounts of rainfall an acute shortage of 
potable water exists such that mothers refrain 
from even brushing their teeth lest they 
deprive their children from the necessity 
of their own indispensable hygiene habit.

Clashing Cultures

That simple, time-worn maxim beloved
of business that to reach the top one
begins at the bottom is an affront to the
tender sensibilities of the young invested
in the notion there is nothing to learn that
they have not already excelled in as they
set their sights on management, bypassing
service. Theirs is a culture expecting due
courtesy to their status as the future and
there is little time to waste in acknowledging
their preparedness to take the helm while
dismissing the irrelevancy of tried and true
methodology for they cannot be taught all
that they claim to have mastered. The brevity
of their attention-span, the certainty of their
poise determined to cut straight to the crux
bypassing the structure of apprenticeship
through positions lacking the prestige of
authority as subordinates may be quite
appropriate for those lacking in their skills
who happen to be of an older generation
in their estimation which somehow manages
to lack esteem and respect from those they
set out to impress as their contempt of foresight
predictably earns them short shrift and swift exit.

 Keep Pumping

Agreed, they have all the attributes that
respond to getting 'bang for your buck'.
Hard not to notice their appearance among
the other bright and colourful baubles in a
holiday season meant to appeal particularly
to the child in everyone and the children
living in the homes that host them on their
winter lawns. All the requisites check out
with flying colours for they are large
eye-catching, nostalgic and brightly lit
designed by minds who know the value of
broad appeal to young and old. And there
they sit, irresistible to the eye, drawing
appreciation from all who view them as is
the householder's intention. Last year the
one decorating a lawn up the street was
Disney-themed, with Mickey as Santa
surrounded by a lesser but just as colourful
supporting cast. This year there are two
Choo-Choos blaring colour and form on
two separate lawns down the street. At first
appearance they glow with brilliant appeal.
But this is the white wasteland of the Great
Frozen North above the 49th Parallel and
while a White Christmas is guaranteed the
assurance that a large inflated decoration
will stay that way cannot be; a tradeoff for 
Christmas in such warm climes as California
or Florida where inflatables are guaranteed 
not to deflate amidst a dearth of snow. Yet
those homeowners, battling desperate chill
of sub-zero temperatures and falling snow
faithfully emerge every day to re-inflate 
those child-centric Christmas decorations.


 

Oh, The Horrors!

It does evoke dreadful images and one
shudders at the very word, torture defined
as the deliberate infliction of pain on any
unfortunate enough to come into the hands
of those who wish to extract useful data
from their victims, or to convince them of
another way of believing, or for any reason 
whatever that suits the purpose of regimes 
or of individuals dedicated to an ideology 
or in defense of one for whom its use appeals 
as a method of control and occasionally of 
discipline or vengeance ... sometimes all of 
that and more. So it is obviously abhorrent 
when a state decides to take a million of its 
ethnic-religious minorities out of circulation 
while they are admitted to certain re-education 
academies there to be lectured and deprived 
of choices of their very own, released only 
when indoctrination is complete, left with 
the memory of distinct psychic harm. And 
it is deplorable when a free democracy reeling 
from a massive and deadly attack on its symbols 
and its citizens apprehends those they deem 
responsible and then submits them to the gross 
indignity and helplessness of physical harm 
known in practise as torture of a horrendous
nature such that among its own citizens there 
emits an anguished outcry of denial. Even yet 
from among others bitter indifference tinged
with satisfaction at the plight of arraigned jihad.

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice

This has been most auspicious
this scintillatingly bright day
beyond bone-chilling
given plunging temperatures
high humidity and incessant wind.

Our boots crunch deeply
into the ice-caked snow
as we pass trees in seasonal
white festoon, wind still busy
urging cakes of snow to !plop!

The sky blue, with drifting
white banners decorating the occasion
a silvery scimitar of a moon
lost in the greater grandeur
of that amazing cosmos.

It is not yet mid of the afternoon
sun sending long shadows
as our legs assume slender
proportions as of gliding tentacles.

As bright as the day has been
there is a darkening quality
hovering in the atmosphere
the sun all too prepared to set.

There is a supreme tranquility
on this shortest day of the year
ushering in calendar winter
though the winter season has long
preceded the calendar.

One an event of nature's making
the other a notion of humankind.

A Grave Event

There are no graves here. Only the plaintive
wind sounding the cries of sick children their 
hopeless mothers, their spirits roaming the 
infamous grounds still housing the barracks 
and the crematoria the vast ovens that spewed 
human ash over the countryside, nurturing the 
ground replenishing soil in an agrarian countryside.
Countless human lives ended here deliberately
and with malice suffocated by deadly gas but 
graves there are none. The site, its purpose-built 
horror chambers and the surrounding soil a 
testament to humankind's capacity to extend 
itself in a vast exercise of destruction. Walking 
in an atmosphere of hushed introspection the 
current leader of the nation that aspired to rule 
the world and was waylaid by its focus on genocide
strolls alongside the leader of the occupied host 
country on whose soil the colossal affront to 
humanity occurred. One demurring responsibility 
the other sighing at the inhumane blight her nation 
was responsible for. The world is their witness
they abhor the past even as the corrosive events 
of the present creep toward an intended renaissance.

Heritage

His mother, a latter-day Madonna even 
if of the wrong tribe, whose new-era glow
adoringly considers him her "Golden Boy"
magnanimously inducting him through
her touching prayers to a distinguished
place of honour such as that held by
his sainted father who bequeathed to
this son of two paragons of virtue
dedicated to hedonistic pleasure (her)
and skillful managing of the public weal
(him) to shine a progressive light unto
the world bringing Canada back into the
realm of a middle power strategically
outweighing its size and wealth for the
greater good of humankind. This son of
the sun of sunny ways brought Canada
'back' to its presumed place in the order
of world progress in 'post-nationalism' 
for he inherited the mesmerizing charm 
of his father, his cheeky acrobatic skills 
and dedication to supreme showmanship 
attracting all eyes to gravitate upon his 
splendid form. The misfortune was that 
inheritance failed to transfer the level of 
intelligence required to reach the pinnacle 
of perfection assumed to be his. The result 
being a constant series of malfunctions 
due to dysfunction sinking Canada into one 
abysmal debacle of embarrassment after 
another while the man of the moment
continues to crow happily on his success. 

Humankind Orphaned

Undeniably we remain one of nature's works 
in progress, the draft plan having undergone 
many spontaneous alterations from primordial
times to the present and look, we are still
evolving. Nature has patience and she does 
not think in terms of her creatures' lifespans 
for in the vast time and space that she has 
dominion over we are but the briefest of 
afterthoughts.Who knows, really? She might 
even in that brief focus on humankind's
complex blueprint, have envisaged a tame
cooperative spirit somewhat like a colony
of bees or of ants working studiously together 
for the common weal, and indeed her humans
have themselves on occasion expressed such
admirable intentions of emulating those far 
lesser creatures. Hers is a busy agenda however
and such details must inevitably escape her 
notice as she turns attention to the much larger 
order of orchestrating fascinating events 
in her universe as a whole, only occasionally
returning to the minutiae of which humans
are but one example. And having turned that
attention upon that agonizing evolution might
have muttered a plague on that disorderly house.

Shape-Shifting

The human animal has many attributes
some of which are integrated toward
the goal ofsurvival, the first imperative that
nature bestows upon her creatures.
There is the kind of drive and tenacity
that helped concentration camp inmates
to adapt to their misfortune with the
hope that rescue would eventually arrive.
There is the intent of curiosity and its
sister, exploration that drove restless
souls to the farthest ends of the Earth
to discover that there were no limitations
to aspiration. There were the minds so
heavily wedded to science their very
thoughts were capable of exploring the
universe and the impacts on human
health of the unseen creatures devised
by nature to ensure humankind could
never rest on the assurance of existence
in a hostile world. And then there are
those who among the populace consider
themselves the natural arbiters of all that
concerns civilization, assuming positions
of authority both autocratic and democratic
who may have been endowed with their
fair share of principles and intelligence
but choose in the interests of political 
power to shelve unneeded albatrosses
in the greater interests of shifting gears
as and when required to be all things to
all people and in the process failing all.

When Their Time Comes

He's had a series of 'serious' intimate
relationships, but none were permanent
a puzzle to be sure since he personifies
that old British pride in one's sturdy own
as a fine figure of a man with a most sweet
temperament to boot which not only his
mother but others knowing him corroborate.
But he's yet young and time will tell. He is
loyal to a fault, is Scott and gave his heart
to two little terriers. One wasn't enough
when aged five he sought out a companion
for that one and the two have shared his
life ever since. The five-year old is now
fifteen and during those years recurrent
cancer required two surgeries. The third
return is not likely to see another surgery
for there is also the complication of heart
problems. The ten-year-old female looks
quite svelte, she has lost ten pounds and 
not until she was diagnosed with liver and
kidney cancer did he know he would soon
be completely alone. Chemotherapy every
three weeks keeps his little girl from pain
and, he says, happy for the time she has
left to him. Companions? Constant, but for
those shifts at the fire hall. Devastation of
course initially, but he has since knowing
them and caring for them resigned himself
to his good fortune even though it appears
to have come to a shuddering halt. They
look at him adoringly and he responds with
all the love and no regret he has in him.