Queen of the Garden

Its age and timeless beauty demand
due respect and admiration
and when this oriental shrub blooms
it is a sight of surpassing splendour.
Undisciplined, this botanical lover
of life celebrates its sovereign
choice to spill its bounty
wherever its myriad branches
grope the boundless space
allotted it by nature
unconfined by the plans of
a gardener's aspiration
beloved by all free spirits
recognizing the quince's
right to excess in its
resurgent seasonal appetite to 
flaunt its sensuously luscious blooms
absent competitors to awe the gaze
of any who behold its unequalled
status as a queen among courtiers.

Nightmare or Reality?

Is this grim time of our lives real or have we 
somehow blundered into the hideous plan of a 
lunatic misanthrope  triumphant in executing
a scheme leading to the most complete of 
dystopian worlds mysteriously able to cast 
a spell over the entire globe to furnish his 
sinister entertainment, casting humankind 
into a vast cauldron of fear over the presence
of a pathogenic virus unknown, threatening 
lives of young and old casting itself into the 
moist, warm confines of humanity to nestle 
within and replicate endlessly sending out its
viral agents without cease in its avid search 
for ever-more-numerous victims vulnerable 
to the stench of its evil presence, as though its 
malevolent course burrowing its presence 
into our unwilling bodies in a horrific invasion
of deliberate terror, ruining lives, causing death 
among the weakest and those never suspected 
of being vulnerable will ever be appeased in
its voracious menace. Will this virulently hateful 
virus never abate? Will humankind ever regain 
its naivette believing itself powerful, able to
handily surmount any threats to its existence?
Might the entire world exist in a phantasmic
state of unadulterated, panicked hallucination?

The Gift of Life

Its roots are ancient, its value inestimable
for its life-sustaining properties yet it is a
humble plant beginning its own existence
as a random seed taking root in a field to take
its nutrients from the soil, drawing minerals
and vitamins, its best friends, the life-giving
sun and the cheerleading rain, and the wind
to disperse its seeds, all dedicated to its success 
as ordained by nature when she perfected 
the intricacy and interrelatedness of an 
ineffable scheme of glorious existence part
and parcel of an inexhaustible vision as
all-encompassing as the universe and as
detailed as the minutiae of an infinitesimally
negligible creation, an animal gifted with the
capacity to use its senses to view and to
analyze, challenging its brain to make choices
to fulfill nature's bestowal of the instinct of
survival, and no other gift of the field has
enabled that success as has that primordial
vegetation that revels in sun, rain and wind
waving the magic wand of its wonderfully 
digestible head in triumphantly arable fields.

One World

How strange is humanity. At this time of
universal fear of the global pandemic
laying medical science and populations
low in a panic of survival a new mantra
has arisen 'we are all in this together' in a
world where we have never as a race of
animals of high cerebral function been
together in any sense of the sentiment.
Where great masses of people clinging to
basic survival in endemic privation ruled
by vicious despots for whom power over the
paltry lives of millions uncaring whether
they live or die of disease and malnutrition
embrace a fundamentalist religion invariably
instructing them that life in the hereafter is
guaranteed to those of firm faith, a faith
to heed sacred scriptures debasing that of
others, condemning them to death. Places
where civil infrastructure is as absent as
justice and human rights but poverty enduring.
Ragingly offended by the presence of others
on the globe who live in plenty, demanding
their 'share' of global wealth. A pause in 
violent attacks against such enemies while
agitating for humanitarian aid during the crisis
and typically when normal life resumes so too
will the acts of rightful faith in rabid terrorism.

 

Strange Times

You're familiar with them all from long

acquaintance, those with a penchant for

enjoying nature regularly tramping through

woodland trails, a touchstone habit recognizing

the value of our natural surroundings, the

urban forest adjacent a metropolis. But these

are not the regulars, their unfamiliar faces

register gloom, they keep their eyes averted

as though should eyes meet the dread virus

could leap the distance to settle into their own

eyes when what they sought was a respite from

seclusion in their homes not an encounter with

the dread new coronavirus. Lives have been

impacted with the necessity of isolation while

other lives have been deleted from the registry

of humanity's population base. They are buried

in isolation. While those distancing themselves

from others may no longer seek solace given

them by now-shuttered shopping venues much

less exercise gyms, or public parks nor visit

local restaurants or enjoy a night out with friends.

Instead they must find comfort where they can

seeking fresh air and exercise. Their glum

misery palpable as they stride through muck-

soaked early spring forest trails during a local

forest's most unattractive season, no vegetation

yet emerging from the forest floor, deciduous 

trees unleafed, a colour-monotonous landscape

only a nature-lover could appreciate knowing

what comes next. So the grim wanderers avert

eyes, close ears to cheerful civil greetings and

slog on, undistracted from their bleak vision. Pity. 

Simply Noting

Is it social alchemy or might it quite

possibly be social anarchy, the situation

that otherwise obedient populations find

themselves in being ordered to self isolate

social distance, remain secluded in their

homes. Sleep at home, eat at home, work

from home, socialize from home, shop

from home. In short become a recluse in

a desperate bid to avoid becoming a corpse.

Or at the very best, inconvenienced by

illness, even made extremely ill by a nasty

virus that has bioscientists and epidemiologists

confused and uncertain themselves. Who to

trust? Evidently not WHO. Whom otherwise

to look to for direction? Depends since a

frightened public is wary of all advice given

that those decision-makers are themselves

left to gamble on suppositions while others

predicate their orders on directly opposite

theories. One thing, however, seems clear.

Under normal conditions the streets that 

without fail are clear of walkers and the roads

that normally are thronged with vehicles

have undergone a reversal. Now, streets are

full of people pushing strollers, teens walking

starry-eyed together, children playing games

riding bicycles, runners, families strolling in

the fresh air, while the roads are absent cars.

Fair Weather Friends

In our considered opinion nature has
been inexcusably delinquent for the time
has come and where then is spring? Not
to be recognized in sub-zero nights nor
howling winds and ongoing snowfalls
despite the early burden of snowmelt now
a memory. Returning geese and herons
must surely view the cold with disbelief
and robins bereft of worms all suffer the
fate of early returnees from winter sojourns
in clement southern climes. The forest trees
have refused to leaf despite the rise of sap
from their roots and nowhere can be seen
early wildflowers on the saturated and icy
forest floor. But then another opinion
entirely entered this gloomy scenario when
from high above on winter-naked, spring-
ready branches of a forest tree rang out a
paeon of praise despite the cloudy cold
as a pair of cardinals trilled a chorus of
admiration for tardy spring, a veritable
embroidery of a melody from birds who
had been resident throughout the starkly
inhospitable winter months now pealing a
rhapsodic gratefulness for emerging spring.

 

Introspection

In all fairness, in point of fact actually the greatest

likelihood in the answer to your inner-directed

query is that yes, there have been insurmountable

barriers, the very emotional distance erected

between yourself and others that have dictated

over the years none may enter the inner sanctum

of your privacy. Not that you ever harboured

intention to shut yourself away from others

nor be as gracious and social to others as you

expect civil people to be. Your sense of self

is that of an introvert willing to be socially

compliant while spurning a more robust and

open invitation to others to feel comfortable in

your presence. You too much value the comfort

you find in your own mind while assessing the

mindset of others, finding them wanting on all

but rare occasions. So vanishingly rare that one

person alone ever qualified for the open position

of soulmate and with that presence none others

might apply even for lesser appointments. Well

then little wonder is it that you feel a palpable

coolness in a long-familiar voice, someone you

once fantasized would become an intimate, a

friend sharing like values. For in fact this woman

who married your son is as remote as you have

always been. She too inherited that gene of 

psychological seclusion, comfortable in her own

choices one of which is maintaining distance

discretely, courteously but firmly from you.

Winter in April

Nature, it seems, has gone off-kilter her
equilibrium somehow disturbed by events 
she has herself moved forward and imposed 
presumably as punishment for humankind's 
presumption. Just as we now look upon 
strangers and friends alike with suspicion 
fearing that their physical proximity hosts 
a dangerous threat to our existence harbouring 
a contagion that has brought the world low
spurring us to avoid contact. Just as one country 
after another has closed in upon itself in a 
frenzy of spontaneous actions in a desperate 
effort to tame the beast that threatens human
existence nature too appears to have made
decisions that may be as confusing to her
elemental seasons as our current state of life 
not-as-usual has occurred to us in a plague 
of illness and death in a kind of new and 
terrifying game of Russian roulette sparing 
lives here and there, taking them relentlessly 
elsewhere. Disrupting her firm seasonal schedule 
a befuddled nature calling as usual for winter 
to depart has failed her due diligence though 
knowing the begrudged departure well and 
in her lack of oversight spring has been 
unceremoniously and covertly shown the 
back door, leaving winter in firm command.

Sudden Lunacy Syndrome

A shaken community haunted anew by

tragedy confronts a puzzling conundrum

just exactly what is it that transforms an

ordinary human being into a raving psychopath?

It's a legitimate question begging for an answer

to a mysterious mind-changing element in

humanity that bedevils us from time to time

and this is one of those times. Psychopaths

we know are without conscience and absent

those emotions of compassion and care so

integral to human decency. And here we

deviate for this was a sudden malefactor who

did display compassion not merely posing as

true psychopaths do to screen themselves from

scrutiny. Unless he was, like the coronavirus now

shattering the world order and consuming lives

as its appetite rages globally, asymptomatic.

How account for a raging passion unleashed

through some sinister cerebral malfunction to a

pathway of blind rage sowing terror and death

indiscriminately leaving a community hollowed

out in mourning and the instrument of their

shocked bereavement titled as the demon who

committed the nation's largest mass murder ?

Three Strikes

Come now, gather 'round as we count the

ways: homeless, drug-addicted and now

vulnerable to the dread coronavirus. Your

luck in life appears to have run fairly thin.

On the good news side there are many fine

people dedicated to seeing that you get on

with life. Not life as most know it of course

but your life, the life you have somehow or

other managed to choose out of a vast

multitude of directions of which you chose

this one. Not that it has been satisfying for

you to daily face the elements that housing

would solve, nor that the occasional high

might compensate for the drearily miserable

lows nor the opportunity never directly

sought to overdose. Much less that the frail

state of your health identifies you to the virus

as a credible destination.And then of course

there's the boredom factor. Look, I'm not sitting

comfortably here in judgement of you and

the misery life has handed you. Was it a bad

crowd you enjoyed that your mother warned

you against? That enemy of youth, peer pressure?

Disappointment with the trajectory of your

life when you expected much, much more?

Well, here you are, there are few crossroads

you might choose from since you've already

completed all the choices that have led to this.

Truly, honestly with feeling, I wish you well.

 

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.

 

It's a Dog's Life

A cursory glance identifies them as twins
and they definitely are look-alikes though
brother and sister, litter-mates of a litter
of two though large for their breed and
it's a mystery how a toy sire and dam
mated to produce our little treasures. We
know them as others do not and though
they may be 'cute' they bedevil us by
their unerring propensity to frustrate
though there is no lack of intelligence
to offset the wilfulness. As male and
female they exemplify the very real
variances in the sexes, both physically
socially and gender-behavioured. She is
most decidedly feminine, serene and
confident, assertive and cunning. She is
also designed by nature shorter, plumper
far less sleek than her brother who is taller
muscular and given to displaying male
tendencies of aggression. Between them
she is the leader, he the follower. She will
eat anything, he will spurn what fails to
impress though his appetite is restored
when confronted with sticks and aged dog
leavings. All well and good but what now
I find disturbing is that I discover a direct
parallel between their temperaments as
gender-varied as they are, and those of the
two who care for them, he and I, both like
them having lived together for a dog's age
each of us taking on the appearance of the
other as though the litter that introduced us
to the world was little different than theirs.

 

 

Rites of Spring

Only warmth was missing from this 

mid-April spring day but the sun was in

its chariot chasing across the sky warming

the yet-unclad forest below. Already red

blossoms had erupted on Silver Maples

though the forest floor remained bereft of

the glory of wildflowers. Suddenly, a small

very small dog came close to becoming a 

casualty as a nesting owl not long before 

arrived from the boreal forest swooped low 

with deadly accuracy, talons outstretched

but the dog's companion was having none 

of it and back up swept the challenged bird 

to her nest of owlets. In the stream bursting 

with snowmelt dividing the forest another 

annual returnee regally held audience to the 

few fish that surfaced. Small, furred wildlife 

re-awakened from their semi-hibernation 

face other challenges now with the return of 

sharp-shinned hawks prepared to nest and 

raise their broods as the raptors coast on the 

updrafts, whistling their domination of the 

skies, leaving the ground prey to the owls

the resident territorial coyotes and red foxes.

 

 

WHO, What Where When, How

A query not by necessity in that order, class

but you are well advised to pay attention.

The what remains uncertain beyond it being

a zoonotic leaping from animal to human.

Where it emerged is well known but one is

not to place blame on its point of origin lest

one give offence to a powerful political regime.

When it emerged alerting medical professionals

to the presence of a new, raging threat to global

health prompting them to inform their peers

their voices were stilled under threat. And

because we live in an interconnected world

of globalism where social movement and trade

tourism and business intersect to profit the

world economy transmission of a little-understood

and often deadly pathogen was achieved. Into the

fray stepped the prestigious world body dedicated

to global health declaring the newly-revealed

threat non-communicable from human-to-human

and no reason to commit a racist act by closing

international borders to China. Now the global

community reels under a contagion refusing

control, asserting and reasserting itself. All

things considered whether the SARS-CoV-19

novel coronavirus emerged from a highly 

secret experimental biological-threat laboratory

in Wuhan or from a notorious wet market can

be assumed to be irrelevant as the world implodes.

Prognosis of Hope

Strange, as a Christmas Eve
gathering place
but there they are,
grey-haired and frail,
elderly couples, hands
twisted in a unity of
care and devotion
awaiting word on
the welfare of their 
beloved pets, aged like
themselves, and in 
compromised health,
undergoing surgery
to prolong their lives
at this emergency
veterinary clinic, an
urgency of hope for survival
to retain the comfort
of restoring that
beloved creature to the
heart and hearth of a home
utterly bereft in grief
and abiding sorrow
without its presence.

Desolation's Antidote

Like a lover whose nonchalance over
constancy has been revealed through an
injudicious lapse beyond flirtation; like 
a loving spouse whose forgetfulness over 
the emotional symbolism of recalling 
significant anniversaries, the predictable
consequences causing weeping distress
and histrionics of sweeping accusations
have a remedy to restore confidence that
intimate regard and deep devotion remain
intact through the simple and most direct
expedient of surprise and delight. Hence
declarations of undying love accompanied
by gifts work wonders when they are given
more thought than the original indiscretions.
These scenarios are counterparts in the
natural world where sudden catastrophe
lurks occasionally to be revealed by stark
challenges to humanity's resilience and
ability to adapt to the dire threats mounted
historically by deadly pandemics. Drastic
protective devices are enacted as people
tremble in fear and foreboding. Insensitive
nature calls up her emissaries of goodwill
and panic is mitigated by the arrival of
hope as spring enters a bleak world bent
on survival. Behold, a priceless gift from
nature's impenetrable plague-softened heart.

 

Back Then

Those were the days my friend -- we

thought they'd never end -- we thought

they'd last forever, but they failed to.

Those were the days of casual choices

to live with a measure of risk felt to be

more than manageable in exchange for

the opportunity to witness the grandeur

of nature and test your natural instincts

the energy and endurance nature endowed

you with while marvelling at the extent of

her creative inventiveness within bold

landscapes of ineffable design. That, then.

You made choices that were not universally

shared but matched your fixed ideas of

value in life. Now, life's value is challenged

through another force of nature unchained

as a dominating threat absorbing the minds

of a universal population in morbid dread

of pain, isolation and death. The choice

is clearly defined; retreat from all that has

been taken for granted including freedom

of movement and above all any inclination

not to sequester but to gather in perfect

accord with others when to do so is to make 

yourself completely vulnerable to the viral 

menace stalking the world as we know it.

And In Spring

A pair of scarlet cardinals sit high on the
bare branches of the red maple in the yard
next door to mine, the male trilling his
devotion to spring. This morning's rain
has filled the birdbath in my backyard and
there on its rim sits a blackbird, time and
again dipping itself in the bath, flicking its
feathers, washing away the rigours of its
long journey in reverse migration. All
around looks much the worse for wearing
winter's mantle far too long. The freed
garden soil hosts last fall's dried detritus
a waste space of grim drabness though
there are faint signs here and there of new
growth emerging from patient perennials
anxious to return from winter's purgatory.
In the forest a pileated woodpecker has
dominated an old pine in a frenzy of mining
the beetle larvae within, its clack-clack
and lunatic cry filtering through the forest
canopy. And there in the depths of the ravine
the first of the returning Mallards settles on
the creek spanning the forest depths, full
speed ahead as it steams, another returnee.

Consequences

A courtesy call? How sweetly thoughtful!
How am I? Well, thank you. And how
are you? This, the extent of this new-age
conversation. At a distance, a discreet
and obligatory social and physical divide
beyond which no one should venture as
a matter of dire necessity, lest the vicious
virus that threatens humanity finds the
entrance it voraciously seeks to yet another
human interior where it plays havoc with
the immune system, handily overcomes 
the respiratory organs nature thoughtfully
designed to sustain life as much as your
beating heart and blood-flow, initiating
a sinister, rapid descent of morbidity and
yet another life is lost. That nightmare
scenario is lost on no one, and prevention
embraces physical distancing and you cannot
now hug your mother, kiss your grandchild
enjoy meals together, celebrate cardinal
events of great symbolism to hope and
renewal together in the wish that you and
they will somehow manage to survive
this suspenseful ordeal imposed upon an
unready world that misread consequences.