Seasonal Wildfires

 

 

Seasonal Wildfires

They arrive in over-heated combustion
when circumstances are just so; tinder-dry
forests, scarcity of rainfall, vigorous
hot winds and malevolence also plays
a role when aspiring pyromaniacs
lust to view the thrill of devouring flames
consume all in their way, from inanimate
to animate, animals madly dashing to
hoped-for-safety and forests withering
from life to scorched death. Towns and
villages, urban and suburban homes and
civic buildings erupt in flames even as
firefighters risk their lives in a comradeship
of death-defying covenants, placing them
within the belly of the beast to outwit
and out-manoeuvre the fire's tempestuous
madness in its all-consuming hunger to
destroy all it can humble and level and
blacken, finding its home beneath the
devastation to simmer deep within the
earth, to rest awhile awaiting other such
grand opportunities to ungratefully lay
waste to all its mistress, nature, has devised. 
But wildfires too are nature's elements of
dominion and control. She entertains herself
with fall rehearsals in the heavens above
harmlessly displaying her awesome theatricals
like an expert fire-monger teaching her servants 
immaculate procedures for maximum effect.

 

 

All The World's A Stage

 

He knew whereof he wrote, a keen observer 

of the passing stage and one can only wonder 

did he know more than that? The theatre of 

which he wrote and for which he wrote where 

drama and the comedy of life passed through 

The Globe to pleasure and edify an audience.

Was it a metaphor for the much larger theatre 

and its endless cast of woebegone humanity? 

Think of this theatre as a gift by the great creatrix 

to her more fully evolved creations, a classroom

highlighting defects inherent in a malfunctioning 

creation never fully developed where lessons  

could be taught in conflict resolution in observing  

a world-theatre whose sad residents are forever 

caught in an emotional spiral of the senses and 

emotions of suspicion, hatred, covetousness 

jealousy and victimhood spar with intelligent 

reasoning only to fail, where ancestral antipathies 

against competitors for survival resources channel 

mind and energy unerringly toward vile conflict  

reducing counter claims from waning sources 'till 

such time that all are destroyed, exiting stage right.

 

Power Plant

 

So faint but always there. It is rhythmical

slightly hollow but deeply resonant like a

far off tuba playing solo liquid bass. And

it cannot be shut off that sound though there

are times when it is no longer audible, a mere

ghost of a sound, constant like a deep-throated

metronome, a perpetual motion machine, a

sound-companion installed deeply within gently

knocking at the lintel of my eardrums. When

first I became dimly aware of its inner presence

I knew it was the steady thrum of an HVAC

system hard at work until one day I realized 

it was not but puzzled as I was  and intrigued

though bothered as I became it took awhile

before I realized that regular beat was that of 

a heart and mine own; constantly reverberating

throughout my body telling my ears I am alive.

 

For Shame

Anyone thinking it clever to parody the vital

wokeness of Black Lives Matter by turning it 

into a generalized statement that All Lives Matter

is clearly an unregenerate racist. Those who fail 

to find redemption in declaring their own past sins 

as a race-baiter -- and that would of necessity for 

the purpose of BLM's unforgiving campaign -- 

as a privileged white, an imperialist colonizer is

racist by definition. Those who point out that 

African slaves had no reason to go far from the 

continent since other African tribes enslaved them 

keeping them in chains; a delicate unmentionable 

spoken of by racists. Be assured that deploring the

centuries of Black African slavery in the salons of

entitled white privilege does not exonerate this 

generation from sins of their ancestors; racists then

racists now. Make tentative query of the need for 

Black Lives Matter to acquire numerous multi-million 

mansions to party courtesy of financial support from

contrite woke white-privileged partners in guilt and

you identify yourself as a racist. More fool you. 

As The World Turns

 

The malcontents whose lives in their native land 

inspired them not to campaign for changes, but 

to abandon the homeland and set out to find 

alternatives where rumour had it that prosperity 

would come easily abroad as would indigenous 

acceptance of the sudden presence of migrants 

naming themselves refugees bringing with them 

the baggage of culture and religion and a sense of 

entitlement in the belief of superior values and 

customs delighted to advantage themselves of 

social welfare services while eschewing strange 

customs of respect accorded others. Soon the 

accepting society finds itself facing an upsurge 

in social crimes befitting a lawless community 

unlike their own where women must become  

more circumspect in their dress code or risk rape

as the community of migrants' council demands

while property theft and street brawls, gang action

and illegal drug runs become so very commonplace 

the welcoming nation finds itself embattled on 

two sides -- by the results of an unstoppable 

foreign invasion alongside the disbelief and rage 

of a suddenly hostile home public whose lives

have been unceremoniously and savagely upended.

 

 

Canadian Adventure, B.C.

While I was rolling the sleeping bags, I saw two people cresting the mountain. The breathless young woman mentioned last night’s storm. I said the storm was exciting, but at 58, I’d found the climb exhausting. She laughed, said she was 37 and hadn’t thought she would make it, said she couldn’t imagine her mother even attempting the climb.

We’d left Vancouver for the three-hour drive to Long Peak. Travelling the narrow coastal highway I felt nervous seeing signs warning of falling rocks from the steel-netted cliff face.

On the winding, narrow logging road I worried about squeezing past hell-bent logging trucks. When we finally parked the car dusk was falling in the shadow of the mountain. We camped on the shale beach beside the lake, cooked dinner, admired the clear night sky, and went to bed.

Early next morning we began the drive to the trailhead. The car struggled up the steep rock-strewn road and we soon realized we weren’t about to get much closer. We shouldered our backpacks and began the hike to the forest. Either side of the road grew pearl everlasting and other floral offerings in abundance, and we continually heard the sharp squeaks of pica darting for cover.

At the trailhead the pitch was considerably intensified as we climbed the steep path. At times the scree was so loose, the path so narrow I experienced vertigo observing the valley below. Our son, a biologist, was in his element; my husband was in no distress. Their backpacks were far weightier than mine, but my legs were turning to stone, and my lungs felt like bursting.

Our son had been there before and said we’d soon be reaching the Gates of Shangri-La, a widespread rockfall over which we clambered. The rocks were huge, the area wide, and it took quite a bit of effort to find our way through it. The views, too, were spectacular, looking across from where we slowly wound our way through rocks each as large as a car, a small shed.

Another milestone; a mountain hut and around it, a vertical green meadow dissected by a narrow trail. We peered into the hut and stepped inside. A big old stove, a long table, some chairs, and upstairs a sleeping loft. There was a visitor's book, signed by people who obviously slept over, intent on a longer hike than ours, presumably. A number of the messages noted the appearance of packrats, swifting away with anything not nailed down. Not far from the hut stood a reliable and stout out-house, of which several of our party made use.

“Not long now, Mom!” shouted our son encouragingly. As I struggled up and upward following a well-worn, but quite narrow pathway up the green meadow. Finally, it appeared that he was right; we were approaching what appeared to be another landscape entirely.

A marmot greeted us as we forded a stream shooting over the mountain from a blue-green glacial lake. Above the lake, after our 8-hour climb, we pitched our tent. On a bit of a shelf in the rock. A 'bit of a shelf' is the operative word here. The floor of the tent slanted downward slightly, toward to the lake. It made for a slightly uneasy night's sleep. At the far end of the lake was the dominating presence of the glacier that fed it, roaring as it melted, for this was late August.

On day-trips ascending from our camp we discovered other, smaller glacial lakes and glaciers, some blooming with red algae. We crossed other rockfalls and accessed crests where we ate lunch and gazed over unending peaks across the Stein Valley.

On one of these excursions clear skies turned suddenly dark; a thunderhead began its journey toward us. We scrambled to descend. And we made it to the tent just as the storm hit with full force. Thunder, lightening, great gusts of wind, sleet and rain pummelled our little tent, with us huddling inside, as the temperature plummeted, but it stood fast.

When the storm finally subsided, we began to think about something approximating an evening meal. Everything around us was completely drenched. And it was, by then, quite dark. Suddenly, we saw what looked like a flare across the valley, on another mountain top, opposite to where we sat. And as the flare grew, and we understood it to be someone's camp fire, we set up a loud cheer. Obviously heard on the other side, since we heard a faint response of a cheer right back, from them.

(Made me wonder if in their distant proximity, I was as private as I thought myself to be, squatting over a fissure in the rockface, half-hidden behind a knobbly shrub.)

We slept soundly that night, though waking occasionally. I kept thinking we were going to roll off the side of the mountain. In fact, I shifted myself sometimes, with the feeling that the slant was compelling me in a direction I had no wish to go to. And when we awoke, it was to the rushing sound of the melting glacier, at the end of that fabulous blue-green lake below us.

The clear skies of the day before, that had made yesterday such an adventure, had given way, when we awoke, to a completely overcast, bruised sky, threatening to dump once again. We made another morning excursion after a good hefty breakfast of pancakes, tea and mandarin oranges, scrambling over the rockface to find yet another rosy-crusted glacier. Returning to our camp site, with the threat of rain undiminished, we decided to break camp and descend.

As we descended the valley I felt good and brave and happy post-adventure, yet anxious anticipating the car-sized rocks at Shangri-La, the steep, narrow defile through the forest. The extent of my surprise (and deflation) cannot possibly be imagined as, halfway through Shangri-la we passed a young man with a paniered Labrador, then a family with two young children making their way up the mountain, happy in their enterprise.

How Canadian can you get?

 

In Celebration of a Monster

 

Give that man a medal. Wait; for truly

distinguished performance that will add 

his name to the annals of history as an

proudly unrepentant bloody tyrant, give him

the full complement, a chestful of medals

for he has achieved pride of place among the

world's most despised tyrants. The bravado

typically aligned with those such as he

offering self as a patriot and national hero

suits well his aspiration toward a legacy

that will echo his nation's admiration such

that no loathing of his persona and his personal

vendetta spelling the death of thousands, those

he describes as enemy fascists and his own

loyalist military can suffice to blemish the 

golden aura of Russian strongman, striking

fear into the hearts of his foes. His legacy is

well entrenched; the stench of destruction and

mass death he ordered advanced spreads its

vile hatefulness in celebration of a monster.

 

Nature's Pitiless Assault

The torment and agony of the mutilated forest 

has been silenced. The shock of its betrayal 

by the very life-force that created it, nurtured it

and designed its existence replaced by resignation 

for there is no force capable of undoing what 

has been done. The ferocity of the storm has passed

but in its violent frenzy striking in every direction

mercy was not on offer. From striplings to hoary 

elders they succumbed, their life sapped by the

force of raging wind and bellicose rainfall when 

morose rumbles of thunder hid the plaintive appeals 

of the forest canopy in its dance of desperation thrust 

one way then another by the pitiless elements nature

instructs to leave no stout trunk intact, bring down

limbs, strew the forest floor with corpses of this

once-proud forest. And so they did, and so the forest 

was summarily transformed to a grieving cemetery.

 

 

The Passing Storm

 

Subtle at first like a grumbling moan off in the 

far distant sky, a sound uncertain like a visitor 

approaching an address not quite identified as 

the marked destination but then the moan rapidly 

progresses and it becomes clear the rumble has 

developed in proximity to its target and its target is 

where you happen to be. So suddenly that quiet

sunny day of heat and humidity has been transformed. 

The visitor is no single element but a consortium 

of lightning, thunder, rain and bellowing wind 

blasting the atmosphere and you are ground central 

watching with the fascinated lens of disbelief 

one wave following another of dense rain occupying 

the landscape in a conflict between a sodden forest 

and a sudden armada of dense, dark clouds launched

in atmospheric conflict sending emissaries of raging 

wind lashed to rain whipping the forest canopy

seething onto the forest floor an inundation of storm

gutting whiplash downing rotted old deciduous trunks 

and shallow-rooted firs, heavy limbs of ancient trees

parting with their masts, the forest become a graveyard 

of the spent and dispensable 'till the storm passes.

Committed to Destruction

The solution for impotent rage? Its antidote is 

readily recognizable, humiliate and dismiss 

with penalties wartime generals who fail in their 

duty to goad servicemen into serving their country 

that has launched an immoral, unjust war on innocents. 

Where members of the armed corps have among

them conscripts who suffer the agony of shame

in recognition of being a party to the destruction 

of lives where killing civilians salves the anger 

of polarized counterparts gaining the upper hand. 

An army heavy on the presence of conscienceless 

psychopaths in their element, granted free rein to 

run amok, loot victims' possessions, destroy their  

homes, rape girls and women, shoot their defenders.

And despite the wreckage of cities destroyed

the villainizing of a once-proud nation and the

universal damnation from an aghast global 

community, the barbaric aggressor carries on.

A Grand Injustice

How strange it is that the country with the

largest land mass on this planet aspires to wholly

aspirate the geography with the second largest 

land mass in Europe, a separate sovereign neighbour 

that struggles to be free of its past entanglements 

of its own volition. Ah yes, an obviously biased

superficial analysis. We know this to be so because

 the Kremlin tells us so, Russia has, in point of fact

voluntarily committed to a huge sacrifice on 

behalf of an ungrateful world whose deliberate 

obtuseness leads it to blame and shame where praise 

should gush forth. In recognizing the evil that lurks

beneath the veneer of Ukraine's illegitimacy as a 

nation, detecting its fascist anchorage the dauntless 

Vladimir Putin launched a mission to prevent a 

neo-Nazi cabal from achieving its goal to dominate 

Europe. Next stop America. Yet Russian selflessness

is scorned, the peerless nation punished and isolated. 

Visceral Fear

 

She's your neighbour and where once a

breezy 'Hi' as you waved at her from across

the street would do nicely because she's a nice

person albeit reserved, things have changed.

True, she now has a grandchild an adorable

little boy in her daytime presence and he has

become a subject of exchanges between you.

Unspoken that question. Oh, you've asked it

many times before and fear a shocking response. 

So you ask, do you mind if I ask? And she does

not. He's managing. The latest therapy and drug 

combination give him some good days between 

the awful ones. Thank heavens, you breathe to 

yourself. The strange agony of fear you felt two 

years ago when they were told he was not a 

candidate for surgery since the cancer he had 

no idea he was harbouring metastasized then later 

the news it had spread to his brain struck horror 

in you. But he somehow rallied and the emerging 

brain tumours subsided, shrank, and she smiled 

both grimly and wistfully. Now, two years on 

you watch as she digs dandelions out of her

lawn, the tiny boy now sure on his legs such an

immense help in the sunshine and fresh air.

Gardener's Elation

 

Their vibrant faces turned to me as they sat

in serried ranks awaiting disposition in the

garden, within the garden pots and urns newly

prepared to welcome them. Orphans no longer

the dahlias, nicotiana, lobelia, begonias, zinnias

have found their home at last, their ordeal

awaiting winter's final snowfall rewarded in

choice positions where their glorious colour

and insouciant attitudes invite sun and rain

nurturing them to mature confidence to reign in

glory over our summer lives. A hummingbird

shimmers as its wings pause at the flowering pea

in yellow bloom. Cardinals and robins peal

their approval of the blooming season and their

nesting progress. The garden soil is moist and

friable, the tender roots of bedding plants soon

comfortably ensconced and the sensation felt

as seasoned hands bed down a canna lily among

the hostas is bliss incarnate, a wish fulfilled.

A Frisson of Glad

 

What's in a day? Hmmm, let's see... Wild

strawberries in bloom carrying silver droplets 

of dew stationed on the forest floor. An early 

morning trek through the woods to set up 

the day under rain-heavy clouds but feeling 

lucky this day. There's a friend with her three 

dogs, her 'boys' and her 'girl' ... a frisson of glad. 

Another, haven't seen him in ages with the 

elegant hound he treats like royalty. Valuing

this community treasure, a forested ravine

for its presence in our stultified lives of

pandemic alertedness ... a frisson of glad.

Almost out of the forest, the tramp's at an

end; there embarking on a trail another old

acquaintance forging ahead, soon disappears

as the atmosphere darkens and rain pummels

the landscape ... a frisson of glad for she

sent her husband to live in a care home, too

distracted and busy to care for his needs.

Gained the front door in time to see a next

door neighbour prepared to launch his scowl

into a daily walk around the block, taken by

surprise at the rain, pivots back to his house

... a frisson of glad for this is a man who never

speaks to a neighbour, forbids his wife agency

in thrall to his orders. We choose in our lifetime 

to be what we are ...frisson of glad. Bright

scarlet trilliums perched on the forest floor.

Punishing Normal

Flaunting the conceit of victimhood whose 

time has come those who claim the attention 

of the sanctimonious righteous have become

the cause celebre of the times. Petulant and 

vengeful, with skilled play on the heartstrings 

of the achievers in academia the social sciences 

and politics they have become the darlings 

of a new mode of social conduct manipulating 

opinion in the emotional acceptance of upturning

normalcy in hushed respect for the abnormal. In 

the process discarding normalcy as an undeserved 

privilege of the many now reserved for the few

whose rights and entitlements now deprive the 

mainstream from entering the vaunted streams

of accomplishment once reserved for them as 

representative of the ordinary straining to achieve 

their potential. Now with lesser endowments 

but emotional fragility that twists the empathetic 

heart of visionaries it is those confused and

uncertain orientations toward whom privilege is 

extended, unearned yet entitled because their 

condition demands due they take from others.

 

 

Men Will Be Boys/Boys Will Be Men

 

 Old folk adages reflect timeless thoughtful

observations of experience that point to

certain undeniable truths. Nature decrees

that boys will in the fullness of time become

men. Folk wisdom turns that around in its

declaration that men will be boys and both

are true. Examples abound but in particular

there is the time-weary repetition of the

fascination that war and weaponry have

for boys. Who inevitably become men and

among them men of great power governing

nations for whom preparedness for war is

a fundamental of national security. Male

curiosity about mechanized military technology

leads to invention, production and stockpiling

of lethal weaponry that lie, promising but

unused, treasures in the minds-eye of the boy

in adulthood. Any manufactured provocation

will fit the bill to declare a war and the race

is on to determine who among the contestants

has acquired the most usefully lethal weapons

in the hands of regimented and trained men in

service to their countries. Of necessity the

procurement and use of long-range weaponry 

capable of destroying structures and people

alike buoy the economy as weapons producers

churn out progressively newer models as the

men who are boys play their deadly war games.

Lies and Entitlements

How strange it is in this reverse universe

where truth and reality are subverted to a

narrative more suited to the ambitions of 

a peculiar people who appear to have walked

through a mirror channelling them to a time

and place that never existed priming them

to claim progenitors never theirs and to claim

a land, its sacred sites of the inhabitants as

theirs by divine conquest. The divinity they 

cite as authority not theirs but that of those 

they scorn and hate. While their entitlement 

is to torment and kill the indigenous of the land 

they name themselves as victims for they are 

the oppressed and those they feel must die at 

their  hands are the oppressors. It is they that 

occupy land ancestral to others but those others 

are named the 'occupiers' who must be countered 

and slaughtered. How very strange this obverse 

universe they inhabit with their claims.

 

 

Walking With Nature

 

Life is like a walk with nurturing nature.

Timeless when we're young and curiosity

propels us into her secreted niches challenging

 us to find those hidden treasures that align 

with the passions of our own being bestowed 

by her upon all that exists. When we embark 

upon our very personal journey through life 

there is an inherited subconscious blueprint 

as guide and mentor toward the mechanics of 

our social and civil stations where we reach 

milestones as the train of life carries us toward 

its final destination. If our guide is moody and

taciturn we stumble and fall, the muse of

existence indifferent to our plight. Not so for 

those among us for whom the way has been 

enlightened and chance generously awarded. 

The Burden of Knowing

 

There are many similarities between

creatures of which we are one yet we are 

distinguished from others not because other 

animals are designed so differently than are 

we but as a result of differentiation in the 

nuances of our thought and emotion. Those

fundamental emotions of awareness and of 

danger subservient to the will to survive are 

universally shared. The emotions of contentment 

or of fear we also share along with another 

link to survival; the impulse of greed that 

compels us to acquire the means by which 

life and pleasure are prolonged. The sole 

distinguishing feature is that of pensive

introspection, wondering where went those

precious years of existence, why so swiftly

gone, the tunnel of life leading us on to the

inexorable conclusion of life extinguished.

Smiles for Patron

 

 If beyond the fear and foreboding an element 

of wry humour can be found then there is hope 

renascent. Tremulous laughter, like a low moan 

of despair leavened by a half-moon smile reflects

the human capacity to grieve and sorrow yet 

find within the darkness of misery a thought 

provoking lightness of mood lifting the pall of 

trepidation if but for a moment as volatile

violent events swirl inexorably on the cusp of 

combustion. So say a word of comfort in the 

midst of a maelstrom of conflict, a proud people 

besieged, threatened, slaughtered, their homes 

sacked, their cities destroyed, their nation's future 

imperilled and recognize the human dignity in 

singling out a tiny creature to be decorated for 

outstanding courage in the line of duty as an 

explosives-detecting champion earning pomp 

and ceremony in bestowal of a medal of service.

The Glory of War

Who? A sadist, only a sadist could take that level 

of pleasure in striking fear into the minds of his 

victims determined to outlive his strategies to 

impose torment and doubt in a staggering display 

of hatred unleashed on a people unwilling to suffer

his totalitarian control over their lives while

memories of earlier merciless ordeals imposed 

inevitably led to countless deaths rankle their

minds. His, a rage so incandescent there is no pity 

for the ageless or the newborn. All are tainted 

he rages, with the broad stroke of fascism and 

all must die for the sins of their forbears and 

their own inherited blemishes of unacceptable 

ideology not in reality borne by those he accuses 

but apt descriptively of his own tendencies and 

values. His military goose-stepping proudly 

among the armoured vehicles, rockets, artillery 

and warplanes on display for the sacred Victory Day 

when his victims fear war will be declared and 

their fragile existence will be extinguished, the

freedom their forbears fought for cast aside by 

the surly decision of an adversary smarting that 

his scheduled blueprint for domination was 

foiled through the courage of the despised.

 

 

There Is Magic

There is magic -- real magic - not at all

the magic of Disney -- to be found everywhere

and anywhere one looks. The key is opening

the senses to absorb and observe, for it exists 

and is real, no mere figment of the imagination. 

On a dark night illuminated by a crescent moon

stand still for a moment, hear the messages

sent by migrant birds as they fly south for

the winter months drawn by nature's gift

instructions that will be reversed in spring.

From the soft twittering of songbirds to the

chorus of geese leaving then arriving sending

the chatter of their presence, the miracles of

nature are nothing but magical. Look around

a forest floor in spring to see the thoughtful

profusion of colourful gifts left scattered about

as wildflowers awaken and emerge to the conceit

of their bright floral bouquets turning heads

to the magnificent warmth and illumination of

a renascent spring sunburst. Strolling by a brook

you are engulfed by a cloud of minuscule May

flies, the sun catching their tiny wings like

precious diamonds in flight. Above and around

the spring songs of welcome from the crimson

throats of cardinals and robins. Dragonflies and

butterflies flitter and flutter through spruce and

hemlock welcoming back foliage on maples and 

birch. Nesting pairs dance through the air in breezy

nuptials magically designed to welcome summer.

Feral Heritage

They are the future. They are our emotional

attachment to existence. Through them

humanity lives on, cherished and nurtured

to take their place in succession through

the ages of humanity. In them are instilled

the values of their forbears. Courage and

honour, and the wish to love alongside the

will to live. Yet vestigial remnants of gross

primitivism intervene when tribal and

territorial passions embroidered with hate

and the rage of victimhood possess minds

stalled in primal antagonism contesting 

others for ancestral possessions who in their 

venomous hatred weaponize their offspring

indoctrinating the child to be the adult whose 

psychotic impulse to vengeance motivates him 

to the barbarism of murder committed through 

atrocities he is led to believe please a heavenly 

figure directing the faithful to peace; one

achieved by destroying the lives of those whose 

own ancient heritage instructs toward peace

extending the golden rule to all, in perpetuity.

 

Pretense Authenticates Itself

Not much can be expected of them. As victims 

they cannot be expected to act and react as 

normal people would turning instead to raw 

barbarity, seething with ungovernable rage and 

hatred turned upon those they claim torment 

and deprive them of their entitlements as a

birthright, a Palestinian state where a Jewish 

one long predated their aspirations. These are 

pretenders to the land, looting the identity of 

real Palestinians whose ancient lineage identifies 

them as Judaeans retrieving a pillaged land from 

those who now bespeak even ownership of their

ancient religion, prophets, sacred sites and customs. 

The world knows the grievers as victims by their 

constant declarations as such spurred by their 

leaders' incitement to act out their victimhood 

through violent murderous rampages against

those whose authentic ancestry they emulate. 

Did You Know?

The sandal-clad, sackcloth-mantled

Judaean prophet who perished

agonizingly on a Roman cross

for his Jewish defiance and faith

and gave courage and hope to the

forgotten left a legacy of suffering

for his tribal descendants that no

power, theist or human has ever

lifted. The faithful over the millennia

who worship at  his stigmata-feet

appeal to his intervention with his

father the deity above all others whose

wisdom and care elevates humanity

in a transport of divine love. As God's

messenger he is worshipped as the

emissary tasked to save humanity

from itself, a humble teacher of the

godly virtue of forbearance shunning

bitter division. Yet his adoring followers

heap scorn and derision on the very

creche that brought Yeshua to his

singular mission, inspiring the beast

in humanity to touch the wings of the 

heavenly host in meek supplication.

The Patriarchy

There, they're at it again, restless and resentful 

that women ignore the fact that God was made 

in the image of man ordering on  high that 

women have their place and purpose under man's 

dominion. A prized possession with an arcane 

built-in incubating laboratory whose owner's

manual comes complete with maternal directions 

in best-practise nurturing while paying due 

obeisance to her role as the fount of breeding 

taking due precedence over pleasure in the 

universal harem known as the family structure 

governed by diktat. Once more into the fray

friends, once more; then repeat as necessary

Or close the wall with our desperate dead.

 

 

Sanctimonious Chutzpah

The little man whose megalomaniac ambitions 

are being thwarted by an unseasoned upstart 

who refuses to allow his country to be destroyed 

to satisfy the whim and will of a neighbour conveys 

his bitter resentment of those in the wider world 

for whom the bullying injustice of intransigence

stings sufficiently despite a cautious unwillingness

 to join the victim against its oppressor yet arms 

and trains its military so that its weaponry matches 

its valorous stand against a larger, richer, well-armed 

adversary resulting in attrition but not the conquest

the aggressor yearns to achieve. War could be over

peoples' lives saved, no more rape, looting or

infrastructure destruction if only the Western

world would mind its own business and let Russia 

get on with its' and the planet will rotate as it must.

 

 

Introspection

 

When we look into the liquid

drowsy eyes of a child do we see

hovering there an elusive soul

preparing to guide its bodily host

through the channels of perception

over years of encounters with life?

Or has that soul been drenched in

prior experience and knowledge

as an inheritance from predecessors

in a shared group memory complete

with the culture of awareness and

the acute significance of who and

what they are eclipsing reason when

emotions beyond personal reflection

overwhelm the receptive senses to

produce another persecuted victim

prepared to take its ancestral echo

into spiritual conflict with the world's

realities in fealty to a vision of self

sacrificed to an unseen presence held to

create and command all that exists?

The Universe in a Word

Although a searing hatred so intense

that it leads to ideations of murder is 

unspeakably vile, it does not approach

a Holocaust. And while during times of

violent conflict countless death sentences

are imposed on the civilian element of

nations at war, these do not constitute

genocide; that dread label identifying the

horrendous evil of institutionalized carnage 

of a people destroyed wholesale. Even so

there are in civilized societies uncivilized 

notions that the Holocaust was a fraud and 

six million living souls were never consigned

 to a tormented early death. This, even while 

greater global society is eager to charge

violent assaults by one group upon another 

in massive lives lost a despicable genocide.