Love Story

Trust, that was the scaffolding that

built their relationship a generation ago.

They fell helplessly in love at first sight

a statement more than a trifle trite

but true; they were grounded in the

ecstasy of recognizing they would be

soul mates for life. Developing a ritual

that they would meet every spring

same time, same place to resume that

deep and abiding love for one another.

Each trusted the other would honour

their mutual promise in a tradition that

time itself gave honour to. Each time

they met their gaze locked into the other's

for on each occasion they appeared more

beautiful, youthful, fresh and appealing

than the time before. Their love, they knew

would inspire admiration from onlookers

and they were right, it did for a more

congenial relationship would be hard to

find where respect, trust, and adulation

exuded from one to the other, steadfast

in their juxtaposition in the spring garden

the blush-pink peony and purple allium.

The Messiah's Rejects

He took it upon himself to reveal
his identity as the long awaited
saviour of humankind, he born of an
ancient tradition of belief in a singular
almighty presence hovering over the
creation of existence. Judean by birth
with the mind of a theological scholar
he spoke convincingly of a world of
equality and plenty for all, extolling
the wisdom of faith and faith in the
Almighty whose intimate emissary
he was, born to sorrow and sacrifice.
His life and death have resonated
throughout the millennia, the faithful
true to his exegesis, responding in
trust of his persona elevated beyond
that of all other lives, his purpose to
be martyred for the divine truth of
God's message. Little might he or his
disciples imagine the course of history
much less that those of whose faith he
was one would suffer endless penalties
for their complacency while the world
recognized unquestioning his message
deploring his heritage but embracing
the narrative of God's own word.The
messenger of faith so exalted, he is
now celebrated by all who detest his
heritage as a black mendicant, a desert
Bedouin, a speaker of Arabic not 
Aramaic. Glory unto God's very own
Ignominy and desolation to his kind.

The Arc of Life

There is pleasure, leisure and
tranquility to be found in unspoiled
nature and it can be found readily
welcoming in a forest, vibrant and
verdant in spring, newborn and
teeming with gentle introductions
to sequential surprises readily
available to any who enter
in search of serenity and beauty
evanescent and ethereal in scenes
in transit as the landscape hums and
responds to the orchestral pluckings
of wild thunderstorms and warming
sun enticing the forest floor to
awaken its tenants and burst into
flower in the moist tenderness of
generations of leaf mass nursing 
the product of the forest where decay
hastens reproduction in the cradle
of its nutrients. Strolling forest paths
in a soothing hypnosis of mystical
day-dreaming the subconscious stirs
to recall inherited memory imprinted
deeply as a valued memento of the
past. All senses are alerted as the
fragrance of flowered seedlings float
in the atmosphere from canopy to ground
and the rhapsodic paeon of songbirds
the whirr of bees, the flutter of
butterflies lend the magic of creation
shape and movement on this earthly ark. 

A Harmonious World

Well, think about it. Wouldn't it just

be wonderful if the entire world set aside

its differences, if rational minds decided

that constant strife and violence in

competing for geographic areas and

natural resources is a past time needing

a sunset and now is as good a time as any.

No more wars, no tyranny, no misery

just the opportunity to see one another

country by country, as human beings

with whom all share much in common

and prepared to do so, to combat hunger

disease and privation of any type and 

measure. Such an opportunity is being

offered by the world's most populous

country, prepared to sacrifice its near gaze

on its own to benevolently open its borders

and accept responsibility for the entire

world. Of course, some inconsequential

roadblocks would have to be withdrawn

say for example, history, heritage, culture

religious devotion, ideals for the greater

purpose of embracing an ideology meant

to take their place wholesale. Let there be

harmony! Prepare for consequences for

the splittists among us. Those recalcitrant

few must learn to 'correct their errors' 

under the firm and kindly tutelage of the

Chinese Communist Party and all will be 

well. United to disappear inconsequentially

into the hungry maw of Beijing. All to

travel one road, bound by a very firm belt.

 

The Artist in Residence

Even those who have never
attended an art class can know
when they are standing in the
shadow of a supremely original
genius, one whose landscapes
reflect the depth of yearning our
subconscious responds to in
memory of our primal past. The
formula may seem simple enough
yet its author must have at her
command powerful servants to
do her bidding to appear and
disappear at the most subtle of
signals to produce a panorama of
exquisitely refined beauty, one so
ephemeral the soul quivers in
vibration to the very elements
assembled in obedience to their
supreme creator. A forest following
a violent thunderstorm drenching
its spring canopy, the awakening
forest floor and the stream that
runs below the ravine, an arras
of vibrant green, veiled in a faint
grey mist with the morning sun
sending its bright warming rays
to dissipate the mist, a symphonic
revelation accompanied by birdsong.

The Democratic Game

Its Gothic Revival architecture redolent
of the past when monarchs reigned
and commoners did their bidding
remains a magnificent sight even as
the buildings comprising the limestone
exteriors have begun to slump wearily
with age and use, their wood-paneled
vaulted-ceilinged hallways creaking
with the memory of legislators long
gone to their graves. It is a Parliament
of the people for the people who elect
to public office those whose promises
resonate with the common folk even as
those pledges for reform and justice
are eventually recognized as the ruse
they were meant to be. As a smugly
vaunted Parliamentary Democracy a
whiff of monarchical aspirations seeps
through now and again -- a suspicion
based on the reality of legislation affecting
all with the exclusion of the legislators.
For they it is who in their aggregate can
be induced to comport themselves as a
force to reckon with that the ballot too
often supports in acquitted accountability. 

Grim and Bare It

Photograph: Isabel Choat

Grim and Bare It

Coming. To a neighbourhood near you. It

may even be your own, and likely will be.

Like all matters relating to nature

events can occur with lightning-speed

astonishing us even as they threaten 

us by irrevocably altering all that we know

converting the ordinary to dangerous

dimensions, dizzying our awareness

with unknown caution in the approach 

to all that has been so familiar and 

is now fraught with potential to harm.

Ready, now? After all, the advance

warning has given us all a good two

months' notice that what has been

routine for a lifetime has been turned

inside out and upside down. But we're

resourceful and we're capable of

absorbing the shock, able to adapt

and we'll survive. At least that's what

we are assured. You must now curb those

natural instincts as a social creature

for in those habits lie challenges to

survival. Practise distance, view one

another as potential vectors of a dreadful

disease, be suspicious, isolate yourself

and set away on a high unreachable

shelf the very notion of sociability 

for this is the new price of survival. You

have but to unburden yourself from the

quaint notion that a social platform of

spontaneous gregariousness is human.

Night at the Lake

In a landscape devised by the
ineffable grace of nature
whose elements bow to her
commands, the sun takes its 
leave over the horizon
streaking the sky in pink
and mauve while dusk
steadily yet barely perceptively
dims the atmosphere through its
grey veil and the restless
lake becalms, birds find their
night shelter and nocturnal
creatures prepare to embark
on their evening adventure.
The moon glances luminescent
over the stilled lake
reaching to the forest beyond
and all is still, serene 
and softly darkened
as the daytime world sleeps
and the night world rouses itself.

The Happy Man

Man is a gregarious creature making it

difficult for people to adjust to lockdown

caused by the novel coronavirus but doing

so it is well understood, helps to control

the pandemic and saves lives. Not many

are happy with lockdown as a solution

yet aside from the immuno-suppressed

some are. Take my neighbour, and I wish 

someone would, as an unregenerate sociopath

known for his penchant of crossing the road

rather than come face-to-face and be forced to

grimace his version of a greeting toward those

he has lived beside for decades. His wife is

an optimist as an extrovert as she cheerily

chirps that her husband is not one to engage

in 'chit-chat'. As morose and averse a being

as a hermit who loathes life and those who

inhabit the world alongside him, he is now

a happy man. Seldom seen in the out-of-doors

particularly now in COVID, where it has 

become officially and socially sanctioned 

to quarantine away from physical contact with

others, he was last seen, scowl presumably intact

face-masked, mowing his overgrown lawn

content that society has finally caught up to

his fixation on best-practise self-isolation.

Portapique, N.S. (Eric Woollistcroft/CBC)

Rest In Peace

Human society is as distinctly diverse
in its constituent parts as the misfits and
social deviants that occupy space within.
And no place is without its share of
psychopaths and misanthropes for they
may be anomalies in a race known for its
emotional attachment to others but they
are there in full raging potential. When
on thankfully rare occasions a psychopath
and misanthrope -- for surely the two
elements of nature's disfavour exist in
harmony -- experiences a psychotic rage
the sinister black hatred unadulterated by
empathy or responsibility uses the illegal
weapons of destruction in his secret arsenal
-- his because though women too have
been known to indulge in mass murder 
albeit of a variant type less given to violent
death, simply nudging the Grim Reaper to
its job with poison or killing drugs -- to
embark on a fury of stone cold slaughter 
those known to him and those not would
do best to cower in fearful avoidance.

Gardening

Their beauty is so ravishing
I am left uncertain whether my
eyes have been bewitched by their
form, texture and colour, nature's
gift to me in the most intimate of
collaborations or whether it is their
own haughty conceit in the certain
knowledge they are indisputably
of royal vegetation lineage and I
a mere servant prepared to do their
bidding. There is a hint of the latter
in their mute reproach as they sit
and fester resentment at my lassitude.
For it was I who invited them mere
hours earlier to accompany me,
I who promised them each and 
every one, a throne of their own
suitable to frame their evanescent
loveliness, and it is I who now leave
them awaiting the fulfilment of that
assurance. Yet they have not been
neglected for as they wait they have 
been watered and given a place of 
honour in my garden, and the sun 
bathes them in warmth and light. 
They are young and impetuously
demanding, while I am neither yet
mean well. And I mean to tend to
their planting on the morrow. Their
impatience, a product of arrogant 
youth and beauty, augurs well that
their summer future is assured. While
they preen and fuss over themselves
I plan to praise them and plant them.

Just ... Because

If you were to ask why I love this
man to whom I've been married for
sixty-five short years, my answer
          might seem slight after
          because ... and a pause ...
and nothing more need be added.
He speaks of dogs whatever
their size when he greets them as
'puppy'. I've never heard them
respond with a 'hello, man' but
if they could they no doubt would.
I've watched as he stooped to
carefully lift caterpillars off woodland
trails into the underbrush. Once a
baby squirrel so small it nestled
in the cup of his hand, came dashing 
toward us on a forest trail, leaving 
our two little dogs perplexed while he
stooped, plucked it from the ground
made his way into the forest interior
and left it clinging to a branch.
Should a spider's presence disturb
me he resists placing it outside in the 
winter fearing it might not survive.
In raking leaves if he sees an insect
within he will stoop to carefully remove
it to an undisturbed place. When winter
passes and it's no longer feasible
to feed the raccoons that come
to our porch he hesitates to stop
feeling 'responsible' for their
well being. He, in short, is my
ever-lasting well-being. Today he
accidentally stepped on a bee and
it reciprocated as bees will. Through
the pain he extended regret for
a tiny animal in distress. Because
... his manliness stirs me so.
Because he is the spirit of my soul.

 

Instinct

There is nothing quite like the upset
of the world order of civilized
expectations in the face of a global
pandemic militating the shutdown of
society and commerce to strike a blow
against expectations of reduced longevity.
When people are faced with a meagre
pantry and the cold bright interior of a
refrigerator that should reflect a nation's
wealth in perishable food products
suddenly reflecting the hard truth of
scarcity, triggering the mind toward
starvation. Food staples whose end
destination in the distribution chain
was meant for hotels and restaurants
declared excess during forced closure
become waste to be quietly disposed of
as compost returning to the soil that
which was persuaded to emerge from 
the soil even while grocery shelves 
starkly empty alarm an already-rattled
public. A sudden rush to access seeds
starter vegetable and herbal plants as
spring, COVID and gardening converge
desperation leads to self-sufficiency.

Nature Is

Nature is. Indisputable reality.
No elaboration required. The
single universal force responsible
for creation. For all that exists.
And while her living creations
have been imbued with emotion
and motivation, nature has none.
Her creations are clearly not made
in her image. They are her creatures.
So does all that furnishes the universe
relinquish their being to nature. The
imperative to be, is at nature's
discretion alone. Distinguished
by a guided evolutionary agenda
led by nature's inextinguishable
plethora of all that emanates
from nature's laboratory. If we
among her creatures have been gifted
with the power to think, muse
and analyze it should be clear
that nature's indifference to her
creations cannot reflect a reciprocal
indifference from her creations.

 

A Thought

Do they know, can they know
do they plan the sentiments
that they word carefully
or carelessly as the case may be
will become their epitaphs
their legacies as brilliant
world leaders whose like will
never be seen again for their
ability to express in exquisite
meaningful measure thoughts
that linger unspoken in the minds
of people incapable of 
expressing them in quite
the elegant terms of those famed
for their gifted oration 
inspiring and moving the
populace, carefully recorded
for posterity, memorized faithfully
by those who aspire to emulate
their immortal thoughts while
framing them in optional tongues
lest they be accused of plagiarism.
Motivated by a desire to speak
hear a pregnant pause from
an audience, a reverent sigh
achievement of the goal.

Faith, Hope, Charity

Is belief in an Almighty, an unseen

omnipotence responsible for all

existence, benevolent yet cruel

wanting nothing of humankind but

to be revered over all other distractions

that motivate the mind of humanity

a distraction absolving us of responsibility

a delusionary tactic of the mind confused

by the grand scheme of nature's devising?

The pious who give their lives to the

praise of such a being, venerating and

abasing themselves, appear to find

solace and comfort in all that occurs

to bedevil and victimize humanity

in events beyond understanding

those that strike suffering humanity

through man-devised atrocities and

equally those that envelope and destroy

lives through consequences unconsidered.

Think of a scenario where a building

consecrated to that Holy Spirit in which

live Sisters of Mercy, struck at night by

a jet plane whose pilot has lost control

and countless people are sent to their maker.

This, from their Sister Superior: "Blessed

be the Lord who has visited us. He

came to our home, at a speed greater

than the eagle cleaving the air

by fire and sword, with violence and

fracas. He knocked at our door and His

Heart imperiously claimed living and

consecrated hosts, select victims

of His love." Faith, Hope, Charity.

The Message

That was its natural home
seated deep in the dungeon of the mind
the knowledge not to be acknowledged
buried deep in the subconscious
never to be knowingly retrieved
that we live and we die
we are something and then become
nothing. Our body decays
our mind evaporates floating
away like strands of gossamer
into the ether to join all those
other once-weres in nature's 
endless universe where existence
began and unnervingly ends. It is what
happens to others, unfortunates
but never to us. The seat of our being
would never allow the dredging up
of the unthinkable. Until a force more
powerful than our willful denial
moved on the horizon and advanced
to envelop the world body and all
its inhabitants, unself-aware and
ferociously unstoppable it winnowed
the elderly and the infirm in a vast
conspiracy with nature. Reminding
us in its persistent potency that
we are all in very fact in death's focus.

Xi 

As a primal language void of
sound in human communication
the smile is meant to disarm to
convince that there is no ill intent
its wearer is disarmingly safe
and no harm will arise with this
assurance. Both the message and its
receipt represent the most basic
interaction between principals
whose intentions are unknown to
one another. Beware the occasions
when to accept that assurance shields
a real threat when it is not benevolence
that wears the smile but a cunning
misuse, deliberate in its devising
to relax suspicion and proffer trust
where none is deserved. The naivette
of the innocent has no recourse against
the practised deceiver who once
defied resorts to intimidation and
threat as restraint is exhausted and
questioners disappear. It is when
the smile has become a rictus that its
intention is revealed but few are able
to decipher its meaning to forfend
the inevitable sinister denouement.