A Shadow of Herself

 

Here comes Margaret toddling and

wobbling down the street and you

wonder if you're the only one who feels

she should be wearing heavy workboots

to anchor her firmly to the ground on

windy days. She is as light as a promise

made in bad faith. Even her smile is

lopsidedly tenuous hovering undecided

on her deeply wrinkled face so narrow

it crowds her features. She approaches

and you wait, deliver a smile as the

signal awaiting a conversation. And as

you pass small talk back and forth

grateful the wind is not too harsh this

day she turns slightly sideways and you

gasp at her reed-thin silhouette, her white

strands of hair parting way with her scalp

in a bid to live a life of its own. Her voice

soft and tremulous reveals the uncertainty

of her thoughts but there is communion

between you, the older robust woman and

the younger woman of frail existence.

In Pursuit of that Frisson of Pleasure

He had the trust and friendship of captains of 

industry, royalty, influential political elites and 

social aristocrats who flocked to his soirees

his sumptuous vacation properties, his Paris

and New York hideaways for he was greatly

valued for his specialty of accessing and

proffering the services of underage girls for 

entertainment in discreet assignations until 

finally his victims had the unmitigated gall 

to bring to public notice illegal activities of a 

child molester. Illegal only because his penchants 

became public. And so his misfortune disowned 

by all  his friends and acquaintances, he sat in prison

alone the victim of sudden desertion, soon to take 

his own life. Now his former mistress herself an

entitled aristocrat with her own roster of highly

distinguished alliances and the symbol of all

that society guards its young against, found

guilty of aiding and abetting his criminal acts

is sentenced to 20 years in prison. Not a word

much less an accounting from presidents and

princes who availed themselves of such services

concealed yet acknowledged while the penalty

for their procurement is assigned to an eagerly

helpful woman and they are shielded from

further scrutiny for after all they are men and as

such these foibles are forgivable, women's not.

 

Seriously, Now!

Wait now, is this a mock-up of high school

politics where the student council is comprised

of candidates whose breezy self-confidence

and high marks for memory and mimicry

make them the envy of the student body? A

moment of lightness in a background of stern

grey world events where leaders of the advanced

world economies sharing their complacency

of peace in their time champion a courageous

underdog at the mercy of a snarling bear. Where

in an engineered conference sit the G7 leaders

discussing a brutal war of attrition they respond

to by arming the victim; they a cheering section

in a no-holds-barred game of survival. Seated

comfortably as non-combatants whose nations

are not under threat ostensibly to listen gravely

to the leader whose nation is held hostage to a

manufactured territorial dispute, speaking by

video connection to the backs of the heads of

bored patrons, distracted by quips and mockery

passed back and forth in good fellowship, their

mutual protege's anguish in the conditions faced

by his country in pleas for greater assistance and

commitment lost to the aura of self-congratulation.

 

 

Compromise

 

Well yes, we're fairly pleased
with the little fellows. Mind
they do have a robust sense of
entitlement but it is leavened with
an air of fairness though they're
not entirely averse to compromise
as in they feel it is fair to their
aspirations that we concede and
compromise. So they agree to
suffer the ignominy of our
offering them dog food, never
mind its sterling quality, as long
as we also render unto the master
race their just due. They have
magnanimously negotiated their
just due in exchange for agreeing
to keep household peace, and we 
are duly grateful. Therefore choice
tidbits of whatever we presume to
eat openly in their presence must
be apportioned; to each his due
in this progressive household. And
all, they assure us, is forgiven.

 

 

What's In a Name? By Any Other Name, Still War

Like a pestilence of death-delivering automatons

they swarmed into the country entitled as an 

organized national military to declare their 

special military operation as though that 

designation alone legitimized the wholesale 

destruction and massive death count of civilians. 

Taken aback when the citizens of besieged towns 

and cities struck back aiding their own military's

response that brought Russian commanders to 

account, the attackers were outraged when their 

victims responded in kind lobbing long-range missiles 

over the border to awaken their neighbours to 

the fact their armed forces were ransacking and 

slaughtering them in a blistering scorched-earth 

program of annihilation. The invasion of Ukraine

given the nomenclature of a just and sacred duty 

to release its citizens from the grip of fascism. Their 

saviours battering the country -- demolishing its 

structures and resources -- once again outraged that 

resistance against their noble enterprise has come 

in the form of reprisal attacks against their officials 

by the deadly delivery of car bombs. Earning the

patriots and defenders of their land the condemned

status of terrorists. The oppressors are heroic, the 

attacked to be despised as contemptuously barbaric.

Hot Off The Presses

 

Pssst! If you had your Druthers would you choose 

to discard news brought to you through the usual tired 

unionized sources with writers who bow to business 

and government telling the stories of the day with that 

left lean so very tediously unspiced, selling the approved

social stance of the day. Well, my friends take heart. 

Have you heard? There's a new publication in town

proudly independent, free for the asking and delivered 

right to your door; no fuss, no mess no charge. They 

recommend reading their sheets and passing them on 

to friends so no one will miss out on the very latest 

the very best interpretations, the most trustworthy 

of events recounted by the most reasoned writers 

whose orientation is just not that of the political and 

social mores we have been trained like seals to grasp at. 

Oh, paid subscriptions can be useful and free-press

supportive donations gratefully accepted. All of this 

can be yours, your voice in the public sphere. Waiting 

for you with fulsome screeds on the death grip of 

government on your lives, the sinister purpose of

Big Pharma leading society to its death throes and 

any number of conspiracy theories. Above all this 

free, data-stacked publication services the interests 

of those among us whose Jew-hatred is legendary.

From Victim To Remorseless Bloody Tyrant

If there is a more universally despised man

let him speak in icy rage of the unfairness

of manipulated optics gearing world opinion

against a superior ideology that confronts the

corrupt existence of fascism, a force of evil

that stripped the world of its 20th Century

innocence, sending millions to their deaths

and he above all others has resolved to meet

that force directly to expunge it from existence.

If there is a man more globally admired, let him

smile that warily enigmatic acknowledgement

that opposing the dark, sinister force of fascism

cloaked in the veneer of sanctimonious right

over wrong is not of  his choice but an obvious

existential necessity for a targeted people to

meet a destiny imposed by a dark force seeking

its destruction, emulating the very fascists in

its bid for supremacy that it once had common

cause with until becoming itself the victim.

To the Ramparts, Mon Ami!

 

Neither is of average size for their species.

Each in fact is wildly undersized yet

neither is lacking in the capacity and the

will to tackle physical challenges in 

the ordinary course of their daily actions.

She of slim girth and even less height

given her advanced age and he entirely

attached to her presence reflect in fact

that droll observation by some wit that

most dogs begin to resemble the nature

and appearance of their humans. Which

is what the elderly woman had herself 

since noticed in habits of little moment

or significance other than what she felt

missing was a sense of discriminatory

proportion. As when she grappled with the 

awkward mechanism of her old ironing 

board and the little dog sprang into action

digging its tiny teeth into the steel frame

snarling and warning the suddenly animate 

threatening object his human was not to be 

trifled with in his studied guardian presence.

Abbreviating Life

 

It's the truculent truth is it not?
This is no rehearsal, it's here
it's brief and it's final, one
lifespan so swift it leaves
spinning heads to wonder. No
argument though, you cannot
have it all. Not as simple as
making choices. Some harbour
scant curiosity, satisfied with
mundane routine, certifying
they will live a long, quite
ordinary life. Those propelled
consumed and intent on a search
for deeper meaning in existence
those whose senses are excited
and exalted by approaching
the farthest reaches of the world
looking aspirationally at the
vastness of the universe, yearning
to reach and to touch the outer
limits of endurance have bartered
longevity for experience in 
reaching beyond the ordinary.
They spiral inevitably beyond
any but nature's control. It is
they and their ephemeral vision
unafraid of venturing toward
that dark abyss and in the process
willingly abbreviating life.

 

 

Beyond Empathy

We have known one another as the
trite social parlance has it 'since forever'
but that is not our language for we are
not and have never been social butterflies.
She is like as unto a sister to me. With
her there are no barriers. She is as fully
reserved in temperament as am I yet
between us there are no avoidances. 
We relate to one another all the concerns
that weigh our hearts and consciences
as though there is nothing to be concealed
and never will be and all that moves us
to recount of the travails of life are fully
shared. She speaks and I listen to her
frank and philosophical acceptance of
her lot. I speak and she comments with
the wisdom of one who seeks to salve
with her compassionate understanding.
We quietly expound and explicate always
joining in an emotional conclusion meant
to bring understanding and relief one to
the other. The concerns and care do not
dissipate but they are lofted into a sphere
of endurance. I have her to be grateful to
and in her turn she thanks me for who I
am to whom she speaks with the candor
of her subconscious recognizing that only
to a sister does one unburden oneself.

He Was My Father

 

Long before he was my father he was

one among a host of Jewish orphans.

Children living on the streets of Warsaw.

His parents dead, he sought his older

brother in Warsaw but failed to find him.

A philanthropic group of Jews found him

and other homeless orphans to gather them

and send them by ship at the turn of the 20th

century, to Canada as indentured farm hands 

to work on farms near Toronto to pay off

their passage before becoming free to be

citizens of the country. When I was a child he

sat me down and schooled me on the order 

of my being; first a little girl and then a Jew

and above all, a Canadian. Spared, he and I 

from the gas chambers. He and the other orphans

formed a society, Mezritchers, from the town

where they were born and they became his

family. Yet until he died he sought endlessly 

for clues through contact with survivors of

extended family but no trace of his brother.

Curating the Mind

 First principle of a reliable filing system:

Take care not to violate the dictum of

meticulous care as in 'garbage in garbage out'.

 

All filing systems have a capacity limit

and the most vital such system located in

one's brain with the capacity to store and to

dredge, sending one's clerical mind to the

work of retrieval will be difficult when due

diligence has been ignored. Rummaging

about in carelessly-acquired, unimportant

files that simply take up precious storage is

a hopeless and hapless task for what the clerk

returns with can be lame, limp, of no account.

The deep subconscious may have been nudged

all too often to make room for deposits of

non-essential wisps of data, impressions, facts 

and figures for comfort. It has its own priorities

the assemblage and housing of the intimate

memorabilia that represent passions of the past.

Any who are now contemplating the wasteland 

they've constructed of an overworked filing system 

will find it now too late for remedial action.

In The Company of Fools, Cynics and Bigots

It can be almost impossible to fathom

that even with raw, hard evidence

there will always be those eager to

express their beliefs that cast doubt on

the reality of the most incredulously

mind-disturbing atrocities taking place

in full view of witnesses and those who

suffer the agonizing loss of life of those

who make their lives feasible. Yet there

they are, the Holocaust deniers and the

defenders of Russian imperialist war

mongering, clinging to their intransigent

views in the contortion of fantasy posing

as fact. An exploration in and of itself of

human nature, propelled variously by

hatred, by ideology, by stupidity, by the

stubborn refusal to surrender outdated

alliances that have long since proven

they have left the company of humanity

with no regrets, not even a lingering doubt.

From the Boudoir to the Nest

 

There is a type of social etiquette

an unwritten social code observed by

mating pairs that what begins in the

nest stays in the nest. Intimate instances

of disagreement building into vocal

arguments are best discreetly voiced

for it is no outsider's business to know

what has aggravated her or annoyed

him to loud accusations and tears. Yet

there they perch, assuredly not in their

shared nest and for privacy what better

place than a forest? Yet recriminations

rang out alerting passersby of the stark

disaffection of a mating pair, calling

derisively to one another from tree to

tree exchanging barbs and blame in a

language known to all married couples.

Just Who do you think you are said each. 

Castigating Beneficent Putin

One is entitled to ask a question whose 

response could go far in solving the shocking

reality that a universal sense of moral justice

appears to have dissolved within the West.

If you are Russian, and most particularly if

your name is Vladimir Putin the world has

turned into an ugly place of vilification and

censure. Aimed not at the entities responsible

for upsetting the world order and threatening

starvation and malnutrition in the developing

world, but at a superior human whose only

interest in intervening in the affairs of a neighbour

is to save it from its steady decline into political

freedom, offering instead the gracious offices of

the Russian Federation. But no, the arrogant

refusal of Ukraine's government to step down

and allow its people to welcome benevolent

Russia has created millions of refugees, tens of

thousands of deaths, destruction on a vast scale

of human and infrastructure waste. The kindly

intentions of Russia met with surly denial! A

puzzlingly shameful, discordant discourtesy. 

Landscape

 

The mountain stream clear and cold thunders

from nearly slopes down the boulder-strewn canyon

walls ridged with striations of grey, black and red 

layers of mineral formation. Spume and mist

from the charging stream have reamed the granite

into a deep divide, constant moisture over the

aeons creating a place of sound and mystery

where rich green mosses cushion the rockface

and lichen thickly embroiders trunks and limbs

of hemlock, spruce and pine. On the damp forest

floor sorrel, partridgeberry and blueberries thrive

alongside straw lilies, trilliums, lilies-of-the-valley

and Ladies Slipper. Tall dogwood shrubs and

moose maple form the dripping understory of

this forest extravagant with fallen old giants

tree roots laddering the boulder-strewn forest floor.

A sudden wind blows the pestilence of tiny winged

creatures in avid search of warm-blooded prey.

Meant To Be

 

Do inanimate objects foresee their future?

Year after year it sat there, a classical beauty

patiently awaiting adoption. And year after

year the shop featuring that stoic teapot

lovingly crafted, skillfully painted, the

porcelain fired, its brass handle forged

completing its presence in the distant past

in a culture that venerates nature and fine

objects of utility kept it intact awaiting my

return to handle it then return it to its shelf.

Until this year fated differently, the teapot

not replaced to its shelf but accompanied

us the long miles to our home where it rests

now, triumphant in its final abode, with us.

The Mountain Pass

 

The summits hidden deep within dark-streaked

clouds loom over the landscape of a vast forest

whose vivid greens ignore the muting effect of

rain-sodden clouds glowing effervescent green

wisps of mist rising from the interior of the ethereal

tableau of a mountain pass, a sprawling weather front

dripping with the remainder of a recent outburst 

when thunder rolled through, replaced by the 

sweet trill of thrushes. The pond below catching

the run-off of the granite slopes, the scree where

stunted pines gained roothold above the treeline

newly flushed down the mountainside into the

valley below. Then all is still in the early dusk as

birds settle in for the night and the clouds impale

themselves for a stay on the inviolate peaks.

 

Soul-Searing Solitudes

We few represent a scant minority

among a multitude of majorities

each attempting to bridge the gap of

understanding through the seemingly

unbridgeable chasm of culture, history

ethnicity and religion to find within

one another the essential humanity

shed of suspicion and fear to recognize

commonalities and accept divergences

as best we are able considering ourselves

obligated by the spirit of humanness

to make the effort to the consternation

and condemnation of all those for whom

the divide leading to hostility and anger

must remain, feeding the chaos of deep

resentment and the ever-present danger

of violence between two solitudes bred

to view the other as existential threats.

 

The Power of Words

Words in the skilled, mellow liquid mouth of 

a master manipulator can seduce and traduce 

its listeners, spellbound with the nuance and 

promise of soft landings the very romance of 

language and its dreamlike influence. Words 

carry meaning, premises and promises; they can 

hide intent and highlight prejudices softened by 

expression. Words have the potential to incite and to 

excite and those skilled in moving an audience 

with innuendo leading to conclusions are masters 

at the game of imputing venal motives to others in 

soothing those whose status as victims require discreet

mollifying with the promise of salvation to be achieved 

by violence against the aggressors destined to become

victims by terrorist action achieving the goal of

unloosing the shackles of civilization. A glide from 

toleration of others to full-on violence the turning 

circle courtesy of the justification of ideas through 

words morphing into action. Ignore the power of 

words' effect and reap the whirlwind of humanity 

berserk with its power prepared to launch their

version of freedom to victimize unwary targets. 

A Day of Infamy in Uvalde

Remaining one step ahead of the criminal mind

is a critical goal of policing society but nothing

takes the place of preventing the actual commission 

of acts of violence by alert law enforcement whose 

purpose is to secure the public from violent harm.

A goal and a practise so beloved of little boys

who view their futures through the lens of the hero 

complex whereby their future is fiercely envisaged 

as exemplars in the pursuit of saving humanity 

from the dire actions of the criminal class. The 

passionately aspiring boy becomes the stuff of legend

a conscientious and stalwart officer of the law 

whose actions compel universal admiration, the 

goal achieved from childhood to adult. Until the 

ultimate test of professional courage and potential 

sacrifice emerges and the psyche of survival intervenes 

forcing a step back from commitment, leading those 

to whom parents in mortal dread of their children's

lives forfeit to a mass shooter turn beseechingly

to the bold  action of salvation only to discover their

fear for their children's lives is echoed by the

guardians of public securities' fears for their own.

 

 

Just Visiting

 

When we arrived the threat of rain ceased

and the sun appeared and we took this as

an omen that our presence mightily pleased

the elements to see us once again explore

the forest byways of the White Mountain

National Forest, treating us to the recalled

beauty of mountain streams gushing across

forest depths from valley to valley lapping

their way along the boulder-strewn runways.

Hemlock, pine and yellow birch bedecked 

with rosettes of green-grey lichen, dogwood

and moose maple in the lower storey of the

forest canopy, straw lilies, false Solomon's

Seal and Ladies Slipper, lilies-of-the-valley

and trilliums crowding the forest floor. The

stream foaming over erratics fallen from the

slopes above, song sparrows lilting bright

melodies and yellow admirals floating lighter

than air through the warm, humid dusk of

the forest interior. Yet leave we must to 

return another year to this magical place of

natural beauty, and as we do the skies weep

disconsolate; parting is such sweet sorrow.