Envelopes

Envelopes - you know, those paper squares, oblongs, rectangles, whatever, with which we writers hopefully encapsulate sheets of paper on which we have typed the gleanings of our genius' Muse thereby expediting said manuscripts through the mails - intrigue and bedevil me. They are cunning little tricksters, envelopes. Not so, you say, how can they be? Doubter...!

It doesn't seem all that long ago that agronomists and horticulturalists startled an unready world with the ridiculous theory that plants respond to stimulus. Oh indeed yes, respond to care, to immediate environmental factors; we all knew that. But plants, they told us unbelievers, like to be liked. They thrive, grow lustily healthy when cooed at, encouraged, have their fancies tickled. We believe, we believe...!

But, you say, plants are animate, growing things. And envelopes - did I say envelopes? Yes, they're inanimate. So they would have us believe. I said they are cunning, and they are. They love practical jokes. Believe me, I know. I am, you see, an envelope-observer of long experience.

It all started, don't you know, when I began my writing career. Up until then I'd been just like everyone else, a normal envelope-trusting individual. I thought like you, that envelopes existed for the sole purpose of well, enveloping things. I know differently now. The little blighters also play practical jokes.

They are, perforce, not necessarily what they appear to be; have personalities all their own, enjoy springing little tricks and treats on the unwary. Myself, I scrutinize all return envelopes carefully now, before slitting their ... oh, I am sorry!

Anyway, I can be quite devious myself. I prolong the agony of opening return envelopes, carefully running experienced hands over envelope and contents before the final irrevocable revelation.

Does it feel slimmer than when I sent it out? Some of the sheaf of papers accepted, one maybe? And the larger manuscript-sized ones; some of them, returned, feel delightfully slim. Have they been utilized by an economy minded editor to enclose a letter of acceptance, nothing more?

This little game has its own built-in pitfalls, for often when I'm serenely positive before opening, I'm completely shattered to discover within the envelope all that I had sent out returned, rejected, and I, dejected, having forgotten I'd used a thinner-than-usual bond paper.

But friends and fellow scribblers, it does happen that when I'm at my lowest, I'll barge right in, slit - sorry, open that dear envelope and inside will be mayhap, an acceptance. Sometimes when I least expect it, my full-size story manuscript will be blissfully absent and an acceptance will be nestled comfortably within said envelope.

And once, upon receiving a large manuscript-sized envelope I opened (that better?), looked within and perceived nothing. Nothing!

Holding it scornfully with the tips of index finger and thumb, making my way to the waste basket, wondering all the while which editor had forgotten to re-insert my manuscript, I was startled when a frail slip of paper swooshed out, and floated to the floor at my feet. Stooping, I retrieved it and beheld, lo, no mere frail slip of paper, but a fat and healthy one-hundred-dollar cheque. Egad!

Ah, envelopes - they're curious beasties. 

 

Did You Know?

 

Did you know
that the Sea cucumber
to deflect a pursuer
can regurgitate
its stomach?

And did you know
that female monkeys
to appease the males
in their belligerency
turn backside up
in coy invitation?

Did you know
that when you thunder
through the peace
of my existence
I offer myself
to placate the beast.

The Sea Cucumber
grows a new stomach
and survives. The
monkey raises the fruit
of her propitiatory act.

And did you know?
I am armed with love.

 

On Human Race : A Humanist's View

 

From the biological standpoint, the species Homo Sapiens is made up of a number of populations, each one of which differs from the others in the frequency of one or more genes. Such genes, responsible for the hereditary differences between men, are always few when compared to the whole genetic constitution of man and to the vast number of genes common to all human beings regardless of the population to which they belong. This means that the likenesses among men are far greater than their differences.
- Statement on Race: issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

The term 'race' is a misnomer of singular proportions, given the fact that the vast majority of people seem not to realize that there is only one true human race - that of the entire species. Anthropologists use the term 'race' knowledgeably, whereas in its popular usage the word with all its biological implications has become degraded. Among the general population, the terminology and recognition of race has a social, not a biological cast; with decidedly pernicious overtones.

Anthropologically speaking, there are three recognized sub-groupings which fall within the species of man; namely Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid. From these three major sub-groupings a plethora of minor groupings identify peoples who, by virtue of a matrix founded in geographical isolation have evolved with specific physical characteristics, culture and society. All other definitions of race are informed and utilized by gross ignorance of the condition of man upon this earth.

Our condition is that we are of one initial stock; that by reason of geographic isolation and gradual adaptation there has evolved a diversity of facades - formed as much by environment as by random genetic change or by direct hybridization as a result of interbreeding. There occur naturally spontaneous random variations in gene frequencies and even the extinction of some, unnecessary genes. Even so, genetic variations between the groupings of people are minor.

People can be differentiated by cultural environment where the effect of cultural isolation will imbue a large segment of a geographic population with readily identifiable traits, ethics and perceptions. It would be more correct to call this group an 'ethnic' one.

Other groups of people are significantly affected by religious teaching and training which in large part may make up the basis for their cultural identification. This is most certainly termed a common 'religion', yet members of that religion may cross ethnic boundaries as well as geographic boundaries. There are, for example, Muslims living in the near and far east as well as in Europe and North America.

Still other large population groupings may be identified strictly by geographic location and this group of people may be termed a 'nation'. Yet within that nation there exists people whose heritage is culturally diverse, whose religious adherence is multifarious. This type of mixture is most commonly seen in the mixture which makes up the Canadian mosaic.

As is readily seen, the above three classifications are not mutually exclusive; a large group may combine a 'nation', yet have within it a diversity of 'religious', leanings and numberless 'ethnic' culturally-induced groupings - none of which should be rightfully called a 'race'.

Character is shaped and informed by immediate environment and that environment is familial, shaped by societal values further shaped by the cultural imperatives current in any geographic area. One may take focus on the American blacks who are a part of the American nation; whom society has traditionally placed in a disadvantaged position; whose culture has been shaped by such societal strictures (originally formulated to justify slavery); whose family structure is much looser than that of the whites among whom they live. This 'looseness' is based upon insecurity, an insecurity which stems from the erroneous assumption that blacks constitute another, more inferior race, than do the whites.

Man's condition is not immutable. Man, the race, has been undergoing genetic changes since he was first recognized as a separate genus, Homo Sapiens (Man the Wise). Physical anthropologists mark the changes in millennia, and even then the changes have been so gradual as to be hardly noticed. But, we are in constant flux. Yet the changes affect all of us. Differences in individuals within the same ethnic groupings are more diverse and pronounced than those which exist between the various ethnic groups themselves.

Unless complete isolation is possible between sub-groupings and genetic material common to that group is never interfered with by outside sources as by another sub-group, then the genetic pool of that particular group remains fairly stabilized and an ethnic group is formed; a group with a common, yet still fluctuating genetic pool. However, even these ethnic groups are continually shifting and in terms of historical 'time' have a limited lifespan.

And even within that group, as for example, the American Indian population before 1500, there existed a population sharing a relatively stable genetic pool, but living in separate enclaves. The genetic pool reached a certain equilibrium and there was a diversity in cultural leanings and linguistics, yet the American Indian did not constitute a specific 'race'.

And there is no such thing as purity of race or sub-grouping, to use the more correct form, since interbreeding takes place constantly within any given society. And it helps to remember that any given society which constitutes a nation is comprised of a number of ethnic groupings, religiously-oriented groupings; minor-groupings of the major groupings of the race of man. For example, it is estimated that fully 70% of all American blacks have white blood, with attendant white genes.

Apart from the fact that traditionally it was seen as permissible for white males to couple with black females (where the reverse was socially taboo), even the blacks themselves are instrumental in changing their genetic pool, by acculturated preference. Black males tend to select lighter-skinned black females as sexual partners. In this way, sexual selection dilutes the darker-pigmented genes and the resulting pool over a great period of time will ultimately mean that the black group situated in America will share the white man's lighter skin tone.

Take, for example, Jews, who are stubbornly considered by an uninformed public to comprise a 'race'. While it is true that the background for many Jews is that of the Mediterranean sub-group, Jews are merely a 'people' or segment of a population having in common a cultural orientation (historical) and/or common religion. There are some Chinese and Blacks who have taken upon themselves to be Jews, adopting the Jewish religion. This does not make them part of a Jewish 'race'.

People often ascribe deplorable social tendencies to particular sub-groupings, which they erroneously term 'races'. It is well to remember that what is permissible, even desirable in some geographic communities is shunned in others. When a people has long become accustomed to viewing certain social practises as normal and quite acceptable, these practises become established as social currency, and when transported into another, alien culture, the practises set these people apart where the resident population have a tendency to disdain little-understood 'racial' attitudes which are in fact, social and/or cultural tendencies.

We are here talking about perceptions. What we perceive is not necessarily the same thing to everyone. Perceptions are informed by experience and background. In other words, if we have been culturally induced to regard taciturnity, public display, acute economy, or extreme gregariousness as undesirable, those exhibiting those traits or habits are distasteful to us, just as the wearers of turbans or saris are conspicuous by their differences and held apart by suspicion. Because in their original environment these habits were seen as natural or fitting, misunderstandings arise engendering a mutual hostility.

Let's have a look at shylocking as adduced to Jews, in another instance of social strictures creating fallacious determinations. For generations Jews were not permitted to own land in Europe, nor to have certain recognized professions. They could not farm, the most common means of livelihood at one point in human history. They were sometimes permitted to become itinerant tradesmen. And they were permitted to 'lend' money; a practise expressly forbidden by the early Christian church to its faithful - which church ironically had itself taken the injunction from Judaic precept.

Jews then, became money lenders, eventually transmuting the practise to banking. But as they were then dealing in a Christian world within an expressly forbidden, church-proscribed practise, they were held to be 'unclean', their livelihood despised and indecent. Hence shylocks, from the immortal Bard's pen, who reflected the temper of his times; hence the term 'jewing' and the Oxford Dictionary definition of Jew as 'money-lender'. An unfortunate misnomer, since the great majority of Jews have always been and will doubtless continue to be, as 'average' material-wise, as any society which they inhabit. But all a matter of perceptions, of discrimination informed by ignorance where the apparent is more readily accepted than the actual.

There also exists among sub-groupings physical differences from their common genetic pool which further confuse matters. Where some sub-groupings can readily and genuinely be identified, as where their physical environment has gradually adapted them to their surroundings, i.e., the Pygmy of the African Congo, the Inuit of the far North, where one group has been reduced in size and colour and the second has acquired the genetic code for an 'abnormal' subcutaneous fat layer - so that they may better live in sound ecology with their environments - they are a distinctly characteristic group.

However, most 'racial' identifications are misconceived generalizations. We may think of those inhabiting the Indian continent as forming a distinctive race, yet they do not, for many confused sub-groupings have gone into the whole, and there is, moreover, an artificial sub-structure there of a social nature which will not permit interbreeding between groupings, thus causing an unnatural situation where the caste system has birthed further sub-groupings, with attendant fairly stable gene pools. The uninformed and ignorant outsider claims that 'all Indians look alike'; ergo they must be a single 'race'.

Jews are commonly perceived to be of the Mediterranean type, and some are. Yet so are the Greeks, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Spanish and certainly the Arab populations - and some of all these groups have often been mistaken for Jews. Yet among Jews there is a significantly smaller proportion of physical Mediterranean types than among, for example, Arabs.

In the same token we often conceive of Italians as being dark-skinned and hirsute, yet large groups of Italians are fair-haired and light-skinned and the same can be said for the Spanish - and among the fair-haired segment, there arises a social condition creating a hierarchy among that group. So we have the 'aristocrats' and the 'peasants'. Perceptual differences and their attribution to race have been encouraged for the express purpose of creating a hierarchy, a class of rulers and the ruled within a society, thus supporting the concept of racism.

Ethnic groups share a geographic boundary, often. They share a common culture within the geographic boundary. And most often they share a common religion. Yet the Italians, the Spanish, the French, the Greeks do not each comprise a race, but a nation. And within each nation are groups of people who do not share the same religion, nor the same dialect, nor exactly the same culture.

The human condition is constantly changing, albeit gradually and perhaps some day enough intermarriage within groups will occur to blend and weaken physical differences. Even so, cultural and geographic boundaries may remain. Yet even so, there is but one species.

The fondly-held belief of racists in 'racial' purity is a risible canard; the stronghold of culturally- and intellectually-insecure antediluvians, the substance of whose contention is as ephemeral as gossamer (without sharing any of that substance's beauty). For its purpose is to degrade other human beings.

Intelligence quotient is often used as a tool by which 'race' can be proven to point an individual toward highly-paid skilled employment or underpaid under-skilled employment. I.Q. tests are given across the board, to those from privileged and under-privileged social backgrounds alike. This, despite that we now know pre-natal as well as post-natal deprivation, both nutritional and environmental, leads to atrophying of the brain's potential.

In other words, an intelligence test specifically designed to measure the cerebral capacity of a middle-class group with background leading to middle-class aspirations is given to nutritionally-, emotionally- and socially-deprived groups of people. A tendentious practise; weighting the scale heavily in favour of racist theory of a sub-species of human.

Psychological traits and various endowments of physical and intellectual capacities exist within all groups of people whatever the ethnic background. There is no one group of people in any manner naturally superior to another, trait-wise, intellectually, or with regard to physical attributes.

Nomenclature and semantics become very important when misconceptions based on ignorance, breeding fear and prejudice, often lead the way to savage acts, one man against another. An example of how words, or loose and misunderstood terms can be so erroneous, is the example of the world 'savage'. Anthropologists commonly used that word to refer to primitive peoples. Yet now, the word 'savage' is no longer current; instead the words 'primitive' or 'illiterate' have replaced the 'savage'.

It can be readily understood why, when we recall that Alfred Wallace, an anthropologist-coeval of Charles Darwin (engaged in like studies of natural selection), in the course of his investigations into the source of man shot a black woman who had been sitting in a tree holding an infant (in Malaysia); thinking nothing much more of the incident than that he had mistakenly killed a 'savage' for an ape. The savage, apparently, then being thought nothing more than a more direct link to Homo Sapiens. She was a human being and he, the scientist, reflecting the unfortunate zeitgeist of the times, the true savage.

So let us understand that one cannot denote a group of people as a 'race'. The word itself with all its derogatory connotations has caused untold misery to millions of human beings. We divide 'races' into inferior and superior. We perceive some 'races' as being truly human, and others as merely sub-human. Subtly we do this. So we hardly notice it, but we do. We ascribe to certain 'races' distasteful practises and characteristics. The truth is that all human beings share like or at least comparable aspirations; to fulfill themselves as human beings in all dignity.

The means by which they fulfill their aspirations may differ, but the needs are the same.

We desperately need to understand that our biases regarding race are ill-founded. If some specific characteristics are found to be unappealing, it is well to remember that some which we ourselves share may be unappealing to other segments of a population; more commonly termed 'ethnic' groupings, and not 'races'. Yet, we must learn to accommodate ourselves to each other, to co-operate, to shift over and give some room. After all, this is not a very large planet, this mother Earth, and we are but one family; the human race.

As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. - Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", 1874.

Reflection

 

We fondle our past
with fingers
of fond memory
echoing regret
at swift passing.

You recall me
soft and round
waiting and eager
that element of danger
of quick discovery
and swift withdrawal
but always there
waiting

and you
see in me still
that other
the one who
lingers back there
dark-haired and nubile
and you smile

here
I am, Love
don't you see me?
This pale reflection
refracting the
purity of youth
is only time
wrinkling the present.

 

 

Survival Technique

 

Never would've believed
your kind existed
anymore.
Like the Dodo
and the Edsel
(generational phase
a passing craze)
extinct. Though

sometimes
I thought I caught
a glimmer
of the essence
in others
caught off guard.

There you sit
my friend
discussing the
plagues of this world
so plainly
suffering yourself.

Keep it up
my friend
and you'll become
yourself
an endangered specie.
Those amorphous others
that great majority

once they catch wind
will howl
for blood. Just
remember:
detached
rationality
is the current
formula for
self-preservation.

 

 

Phoenix: A People

Some think it is
undefinable
some strange element
so faint perhaps it really
is not there;
but yes, it is
evanescent at times
barely beating at others
but there
that distinguishing
(characteristic, is it?)
which binds a people
cements their past
to the present
illuminates their future
though the people be divergent
so far from its roots
acculturated
lacking commonality of vision
but for this strange link.
This
link which strangely
identifies and sets apart
willingly, unwillingly. Yet
it is too a joyous thing
and by its grace
we levitate we dance
we dry our ancient tears
and rise from the smouldering ruin
of history. 

 

My Self

I am many where
I would be one
fearing forced explication
or the face turned away from mine
so I become malleable
as clay
responding to others' biases
tamping down
my inside self
forcing up those double images
parroting words
to evoke pleasant acceptance
prevent awkwardness
yet disliking this stranger
making her uncomfortable
sojourn
nestling among my
sinews my bones
where that one and that one
is all things
to all men
and that too-quiet
lonely voice calls out
yet unheard
hear me!
let me out....
I cannot.

 

Sanctuary (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trees bare as straw brooms
bleed bright yellow blazes
sharp counterpoint on grey beech
as dark needles of conifers
comb the winter air
shoved by a bitter wind.
The snow is loosely sifted
glaringly bright under the winter sun
as we cross-tuft a pattern
striding snowshoed. The
silence echoes as we whisper
in the cathedral stillness of the wood
watch two deer panic
red rumps flicking white flags
dark droppings steaming in the snow.
They're still spooked by vague
ghosts of hunting incursions
in this game sanctuary.

[We'd watched helplessly
as scaups frantically
beat the air
rising from a quiet autumn lake
air thick with shot. Later
looked down from protected heights
as a deer veed another lake
trying to escape the hunters
finally standing
frozen in fear
on the cusp of the lake
a perfect target.]

They're forgetful in the summer
memory of terror dimmed
let us watch them browsing.
Yet it was just last summer
we discovered this same forest pathway
plush with fawn-coloured hair
yawning with the chalk-white
skull of an unwary deer.

 

 

 

Under The Sun And Brother Mars

Still at it, those tired old hacks.
Groping words of warning to shape
the world; gloom prophets. And Mars
down from his bloody planet laughs
striding killer boots over the
shrinking earth. Lame-minded prophets,

like hobble-foot Hephaestus, pleading
peace. Tired platitudes. What
mindless destruction? Civilization
has reached its zenith. In scientific
technology in detachedness.

Innocuous that word; neutron. From
neutral? Undecided?
Not taking sides. Impartial
Switzerland was once a nation of
mercenaries. Hephaestus, remember, was
a blacksmith, himself clanged weapons

of war. Too lame to fight but provided
the means. It all seems so damn
familiar. We are grateful for mass
anonymity and sanity prevails. We've
leaped forward to a time of great

understanding. Understanding as we
do that the dead are only
television images.

 

Everyman

 

(Oh Death, thou comest when I
had thee least in mind!)

God Adonai called His servant
Death and made him Supreme
Messenger to unready man.

Everyman lived his life in order,
spoke of truth and justice,
wrote in a notebook of all his good deeds
prided himself on intelligence and
great sensitivity; shrugged off his
blind impatience.

Everyman surrounded himself with
the Good Things that commerce affords
its precise practitioners, enjoyed a
large circle of friends, sent cards
on Special Occasions to Family.

Rendered his children to approved
Seats of Learning. Everyman read his
bible, considered it a runaway best
seller, liked the bit about an eye
for an eye - he supported Capital
Punishment. Everyman mailed cheques

weekly to his sons and daughters
to ease their way in this Vale of
Tribulations. Facing the Dread Angel
he said: why me? I'm not Godhelpme
ready yet - I need time - to settle
affairs, compose my final goodbye....

Obliging Death granted him a
lingering shade that gaunted his flesh,
sunk his eyes. Everyman fondled his
deedbook, ran loving hands over bankbook
and new car. Said goodbye to his

friends' turned faces; wearily slit
open envelopes to read get-well cards.
Wondered if this was God's punishment
for hanging murderers. Sent off the
last cheque to his grieving
sons and daughters.

 

 

Map Reading

The mortal wrappings
shrunk and desiccated
two old souls leaning into the
day
hunched inside themselves
supporting one the other
sloping gently
down the Saturday street.

His hair a lofty wisp
in the breeze; hers lies
grey and complacent
over a face lined with
(could one read faces)
equal measures of bitterness
and sorrow.

They have one another
through the creeping years;
not cause in itself for joy?

But faces are not easily read
the inner self privacy incarnate
those knife-sharp runnels
eyes which weep rather than see
might as easily be
celebrating memory.

Who are we to read messages
in deep pools of age
running dark fingers of memory
through uncertain steps
living the past in the present
stumbling Saturday streets
into the meagre future?

 

Nihonjin

 

This country once so fierce
still feared by its neighbours
once victims and never forgiving
has pledged itself to peace.

This land where violence
is shunned and courtesy reigns
contends with a Korea
and a great giant China
nervous of its potential.

Yet, its people recall
their own vulnerability
and the ultimate desolation
and will brook no overt militancy
nor covert resurgence.

Here, personnel of
Japan Defense Forces
cannot wear their uniforms in public
else this most courteous of publics
heap public scorn and ridicule.

Would that all other
countries' people followed suit
demanding of their leaders that NO MORE
NEVER more than 'itchi pacento'
be used for arms and defense.

We may enjoy our solitudes
or we may enjoin for tolerance
we may not thrust the dark intent
of the final ending of all things
on all living matter.

It is the peoples' will.

 

 

The Innocence of Rasputin

Recently I read a news report that Rasputin's daughter Marie had died of a heart attack in California. Apparently, she had been busy the last few years co-authoring a book attempting to exonerate her father of what she claimed were 'calumniating infamies'.

Coincidentally, I had a dream shortly afterward. I recall waking from the dream disturbed, yet only one scene remained clear; that I was in a bucolic setting and there saw my uncle walking toward me. He looked young and sported a full head of hair, which seemed peculiar in itself since I'd never known him young and he'd always been bald. As he approached me he began to diminish in size and his clothes appeared to melt until he stood before me wearing a fatuous smile and nothing else; a naked imp. That same dream occurred three nights in succession.

Guilt. It was as simple as that; I felt subliminally guilty because I'd impugned his memory. "Rachel, I have bad news for you", my kid brother Barry had said, calling from Toronto. His voice sounded half-strangled, a poor connection I thought.

"What?" I gulped, imagining all kinds of disasters that might really have mattered to me.
"Uncle Frank died."

At first it didn't quite penetrate. I mean, my first reaction was, why was this bad news? After all, the man had been sick for a while, he wasn't young, and furthermore he meant very little to me. Too bad, I felt, but that's life.

"Oh", I finally replied. I suppose my reaction seemed too pallid, even long-distance.

"He was a good man", Barry said with surprising piety, as though daring me to deny it.

Again, I didn't know what the hell he meant. What was so good about the man? Barry hardly knew him. Then I recalled that during his last visit Barry had been wildly enthusiastic about his late discovery that Uncle Frank was an amateur soil-tiller. Barry is a professional environmentalist, you see, with a doctorate in ecology, and he was thrilled to discover that Uncle Frank used manure instead of commercial fertilizer on his vegetables. Barry is younger than me, another generation entirely.
Mine isn't particularly dedicated to anything, while his is serious, too serious about issues that pass right by me. "You don't know what you're missing, Rachel", Barry had once said to me. "I'd like to turn you on."

"Incest doesn't excite me", I'd said, and he looked disgusted. Maybe he thought there was a natural affinity in both kinds of grass, and getting me into one would excite a latent interest in the other.

All this nonsense going through my head, and I said, almost casually, "What the hell! He wasn't such a good man..."
"What do you mean?" Barry shot back.
"He was a child-molester, our Uncle Frank."
"What the hell...!"
"That's right, dear brother. Me, he assaulted me, before you were ever born."

Silence, then a cool and very polite 'goodbye'. And that was the last time he called. Pity. I miss him.

In retrospect I think I was wrong, I should have shut up; of course I should have, but I always was impulsive. Anyway, it brought back memories, and I began to muse on definitions of good and bad; how to equate personal characteristics with one or the other, and who, really, is the final judge?

When I was about six or seven I used to run, two steps at a time, up and down the stairs to our second-floor flat. Once my mother had given me an empty bottle and sent me out for a quart of milk from the corner store. I tripped, missing the second-to-last step. The bottle remained intact, but I incurred a hairline fracture. I wore a cast for about six weeks. Since my mother worked, my aunt, Uncle Frank's wife, offered to take me to the hospital to have the cast removed at the proper time.

My aunt and uncle had a roomy apartment on Dundas Street, then. I can remember him going up through a trap-door in the ceiling of the hallway to get to the roof. He'd trap pigeons up there; show them to me, their beady eyes blinking as he gently stroked their feathers. They were destined for the cookpot.

I had two cousins, a boy and a girl, both older than me. My aunt wouldn't permit me to sleep with either of them, but instead set up a makeshift bed for me, between her bedroom and her children's, beside a French door connecting the two. In the morning, before daylight, I saw my aunt get up from her bed and move like a white-sheeted wraith down the hallway toward the kitchen. I had slept badly during the night, not only because the 'bed' was uncomfortable, but also because it was my first night ever away from home. The traffic outside threw ribbons of light over the ceiling, and shadows seemed to loom from every corner. I worried too about how the 'operation' would proceed the following day - cutting the cast off. I imagined the knife slipping, and goodbye arm.

My uncle, seeing that I was awake, motioned me to get up, to come over. He lifted a corner of the quilt, inviting me into his bed. "Come, get in", he said. At first it seemed an appealing idea. Then I caught the thick odour of nightsweat and hung back, shaking my head. "Get in", he insisted, "and don't make any noise - you don't want to wake your cousins."

Obedient, I scrunched myself into a private little ball, distancing myself from him, but surprisingly he moved closer. "I won't hurt you", he promised, weighting me down, "relax and don't make any noise."

Years later they bought a house on Indian Road, right next to High Park. My uncle transformed the paltry yard into a Garden of Eden. Neat rows of vegetables thrived under his devoted hoe. He grew fruit trees from seed and lavished care on every type of flower.   Although a short, squat man with a broad peasant face, when in his garden he glowed, became a voluptuary moving as in a trance through a green dream.

I disliked their house, but would go there with my mother, leave her there, and go off by myself to High Park to wander around; over to Grenadier Pond, where the Queen's Grenadiers were reputed to have followed their leader unswervingly, drowning, every last man of them, unwilling to break the perfection of their suicidal march. From there to the animal cages, where bison and oriental goats were kept. Then to the smaller ponds where water-fowl abounded and if I was sharp-eyed I could catch them mating. I'd lose myself in the trees, imagining I was in a jungle and not me at all, but my hero, Tarzan of the Apes.

I was a dark-skinned child, small for my age, with long black hair. My mother would wash my hair with coarse soap that stung my eyes, and then rinse it with lemon juice, accentuating the agony. Finally, she would rake it with a fine-toothed comb; my school shed a lot of 'cooties'. My hair, curly, would snag on the comb, and it was an excruciating procedure. Once, to try to make her stop torturing me, I shouted apropos of nothing. "Uncle pulled my pants down!" She slapped me.

Well, it had been true. He had persuaded me to let him take my pants down one evening at High Park; promised me a purse of my own, real leather, just like one he'd bought for his daughter. I was an avaricious child, but I never did get that purse.

Not long after, I persuaded my mother to let me get my hair cut short. I thought I would look pert, like my cousin with her short, curly bob. My mother sent me to him. He had, you see, huge shears because he was a tailor by profession. He hefted each braid in his beefy hands and asked, "You sure?", then lopped them off. Seeing them looped on the floor, myself cropped and unbeautiful in the mirror, I felt bitterly disappointed.

As for the molesting, it wasn't only him, I'll say that much. I mean, I can remember teenaged boys who lived below our flat, trapping me in the common bathroom, unzipping their pants and exhibiting their prizes. I couldn't have been more than five or six then. A roomer on the same floor would wait to hear my footsteps in the hallway, then open his door and flash. And the old men in the park, always following me, promising goodies. I was frankly fascinated. Fascinated, I think, that men were so damned silly.

At my wedding he was there, with his bluff peasant heartiness. Holding a glass of vodka, he gave my husband-to-be pertinent advice. God, he looked like a real muzhik, that man; a Russian peasant. Which of course was what he had been. After the ceremony, when he'd had a little more to drink, he wove his exuberant way among the guests, following me and my husband around, giving us more specific advice. When we left after the reception Uncle Frank shouted after us, finally: "Have - a - good - time!"

When, years later, we bought a house of our own, he gave us a sapling peach tree.

All the above is by way of explanation, background - an attempt to balance the weights of good and bad. Now take history's treatment of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, also a Russian muzhik. Russian peasantry considered him a holy man, a starets. History documents him as one of the most iniquitous and unprincipled villains of recent history, a charlatan of the first order, who freely manipulated that brace of royal simpletons, Nicholas II and Alexandra. On the other hand he raged against the establishment, the aristocracy both religious and secular. "No wonder the peasants are ignorant and poor - you give them taverns and brothels, not hospitals and schools!"

Rasputin advocated social assistance for the indigent, fought against war, and later against the conscription of farmers. Naturally, he also accepted 'gifts' for his political manoeuvrings, and he delighted in lurid exhibitionism. But again, he dispensed personal largess to needy petitioners.

He was, in the end, a victim of what we now call 'bad press'. A more indulgent muse chronicled the exploits of Byron, Boswell, and Rousseau.

Not long after my brother's call, my mother came to spend a few days with me. We walked along a pathway in a park where where I live now. It was a lovely, crisp autumn day, and we waded through leaves: their acrid odour, rising and mingling with the cool air, reminding me of High Park.

"Do you remember, Ma", I felt suddenly moved to ask her "Once when I was a child, I told you that Uncle Frank molested me?"

She stopped, turned her astonished face to mine: "What do you mean?"
"I mean that he bothered me, sexually."
"No! You never said anything like that to me, I wouldn't forget! Are you serious? Something like that happened?"
"Yes."
She tipped her face toward me. "You're sure?"
"Of course."
"If I knew!" she spat savagely. "If I knew - I would have torn his eyes out!"

We resumed our walk, an awkward silence between us, and I wondered at myself; what could my motive be, to place this burden on her? Foment an awkward distance between my mother and her sister, Uncle Frank's wife? Finally she turned to me.

"It never happened" she said, with a rising inflection. "You were only imagining things." She looked at me with her knowing eye.
"You always did have an active imagination, and you're still mischievous!"
She went on to describe what a paragon of strength my uncle had been to her after my father's death. And when his own death stared him in the face, how noble he had been, blessing his family with his continued concern for them, ignoring his own pain.

So it's true. Everything balances out. A small girl's unhappiness becomes a grown woman's spite. There is nothing to forgive, and I have already forgotten. Uncle, rest in peace.

 

Early Spring Climb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our purview limitless
through trees grey and bare
as a haze in the forest.
The stream gathers
winter's last gasp
sounding like a
hurricane mounting
and we watch the water
dash white-spumed
over green-lichened granite.
Beside the stream
coy unfurling of ferns
slits of white as
trilliums raise heads
to the newly-compelling sun.
We step around
winter's casualties
sloppily strewing
the forest floor;
fir and spruce
mourning spindly spires.
We even doubt
survival of the fittest
observing great pines
split asunder
by winter's tantrums.
The ascent is less gradual
than summer's memory
as we sit on a promontory
overlooking the lake
where three blunt-winged
marsh hawks laze on the wind
pinions etched
on the lowering sky.

 

 

Spiritual Revenance

Angelic hierarchy
flutter my adoring mind
transfix my soul
with melody of the spheres
that grand celestial psalmody.

Zodiacal Intermediaries!
Messengers of Light!
Succouring Avengers!
Ministering Flames!

Through sightless orbs
materializes a melange
of lesser lights
Cherubs, Seraphim
guarding G-d's only throne
ascend gently to

Angels, Archangels
biblic Michael, Gabriel, Raphael
(as for Metatron he
lurks unbecomingly
behind seventy names)
terrifically awe-ful
manifestly inspiring all

permutations of brilliant majesty
The Heavenly Host.
(Never speak of
clattering harpies
winging star-flecked time.)

Renascent deification
plagiarizations
from misted fearful antiquity
Persia, Assyria, Babylonia
lost age of fabled Mesopotamia
lighting mortality's
frail landscapes.

Support my wasted clay
oh vibrant lozenges
you golden-haloed faultless
brazen-imaged
myriad-eyed pretenders.

Where are you
when my pious tongue
worships your
Forbidden Name?
 

The Human Dilemma

 

 

What if the source of humanity's inability 

to improve itself and leave its baser instincts 

behind is lodged in its collective desire to be

better than it knows it is, feeling that it can be 

better and failing abjectly, leading to conflict

 and misery for all involved, encouraging among 

the disaffected an errant embrace of sociopathy

as a more direct route making gains for the 

human element in minority to realize their own 

aspirations for chaos to reign. A bizarre defect 

within the majority which yearns for order and 

equality equating honeyed words of promise 

from those seeking power then producing nothing

of value but for their own ends to be achieved

antithetical to good government and public

usefulness. While the rare blunt-spoken candidate 

persuading the electorate he can deliver good 

for society that others have failed to do does 

just that in  masterful strokes of judicious reasoning 

from a persona whose personal failings in decency 

mask the successes he is responsible for, leading

to his downfall and the return of the poseurs

producing ill government and the reality of 

failure. Choices so flawed and ill-starred

peace prizes are awarded to warmongers.

 

 

What If ... Really!

 

It has the status of being lodged in the minds

of those whose full faculty of cerebral function

has always been in doubt, so classify it as the

merest germ of a viral suspicion that a cabal

governing the greatest population on Earth, one

whose heritage and traditions reflect superior

facility in any and all indices of human innovation

where meritorious advance in the public sphere

recognized native intelligence, where the singular

art of superb craftsmanship has rarely been

equalled, all now harnessed to the ambition of

achieving power and influence at a global level

where the seated position of supreme unilateral

universal power lies in the comfortable possession

of a rival whom no ordinary efforts at unseating

can prevail. Why then, unleash the simple formula

of nature's insatiable silent and hidden threat of a

parasitic pestilence so intrusively dangerous and 

hungrily invasive it becomes a vector for  triumph 

through utter chaotic destabilization leading that 

sole power to vacate its throne and since nature 

abhors a vacuum it crooks its finger in beckoning

 the adversary to occupy the abandoned seat of 

power and influence it has so odiously earned.

 

Nature's Reckoning

There is still a faded sign remaining
reading "private" verging where
public property exists and which
should include that stretch of ravined
forested streambed the sign identifies.
An inexplicable legal glitch representing
personal entitlement where none should
be. A pillar of his community, church
elder, friends on the municipal,
law-making, law-breaking council.

The once lovingly, energetically tended
area, where he worked mightily in his
retirement years to wrest the initiative
from nature in his own untamed gardening
zeal had produced from her raw elements
through his botanical vision a veritable
hanging gardens albeit replete with
plants that ancient Babylon never saw.

He moved mountains of seasonal
detritus to be replaced laboriously by
richly amended soil, where ordered and
mannerly ornamental trees, shrubs
and perennials would lustily thrive.
He constructed an elaborate series of
stairs and terraces, arbors and gazebos,
fountains and ponds where swam exotic
gold and silver fish from the East.

Where sun filtered through the forest
canopy he planted perennials that thrived
in semi-shade, and where shade prevailed
he thoughtfully planted shade-loving plants.
He surveyed his work and proclaimed it
good, then posted additional "private"
and "keep out" warning signs lest anyone
blunder unaware, upon his treasures.

He feasted his eyes and his gloating pride
upon his success, his Shangri-la, inviting
glossy gardening journals to come along
at his behest to photograph and feature
his very private, exclusive, most exceptional
Paradise. Viewers were charmed, enthralled
and outraged at his assumption of the private
upon the public space and much heated
discussion ensued, two camps emerging,
those who deplored his hubris and those
who staunchly defended his green genius.

All moot, now. Nature has reclaimed her
possession. Gone the plethora of urns and
overflowing terra-cotta pots brimful of form,
texture and colourful blooms. Gone the leisure
chairs, lounges and tea tables. The stream now
runs unimpeded - gone the pools and the
exotic fish. Squirrels now run freely, no longer
trapped and excluded. Time has swept him into
history and his gardens to nature's reckoning.

 

 

A Symbol of Another Time

 

One must, of necessity be circumspect
in polite society. Taking care not to offend,
for example, by making much of an
exotic spectacle. It would not do at all
to glance lingeringly and notice with some
depth of observation those garbed in a
manner reflective of a far-off, foreign
culture so removed from our own that
men wear a sort of dress and cap it seems,
and women of that culture simply are not there,
so eclipsed are they by the voluminous
fabric cage in which they are enveloped,
eyes only to be seen through narrow slits
permitting forbidden sight lines.

Surely this represents a vision tunnelled
concisely toward a heavenly gaze so the
pious may not be led sadly astray by
commingling with those of another culture
whose freedoms represent monstrously
blasphemous insults toward a sacred injunction.
So we may not and should not judge, nor
feel rejected when a tentative overture is
sullenly ignored by those deliberately
oblivious to the presumed female
penchant for verbalizing contact.

Yet those small girls, frantically alive
with the zest of games and companionship,
heads carefully covered and hair tucked within,
seem as joyful and carefree as any child,
anywhere. What happens to them on the way
to adulthood, to succumb to traditions of bitter
silence, avoidance of human relations, sour
withdrawal inside self, hidden by prison-like
garments from the beckoning world without?

The little boy, however, steering
the shopping cart for his uber-clad
mother, softly excuses himself and shyly
smiles, his brown eyes sweet, as he
crowds the groceries aisle and passes
before me. Him, my own eyes gratefully
embrace, a symbol of another time
another place and hope for the future.

 

We Canadians

 

Born and bred to this winter Arctic
wilderness that is Canada, we pride
ourselves in toughing out the windy blasts
that chill one's marrow, the sleeting rain,
dense ice fog and miles upon mountain
piles of unrelenting snow hushing
everyday winter lives in our country,
the Great White Northern region. As the
Inuit did, we wear mukluks and great,
down-filled parkas, finger-awkward
mittens and the coureur de boise toque.

We know the symptoms of frost-bite
and the dangerous plunge of internal
body temperatures. Our literature is
rich with tales of those who, setting forth
bravely in the midst of a raging snowstorm
mere metres from the security of home
never return alive. The danger of lake
and river ice too premature to hold has
seen too many slip into frigid waters,
trapped by an transparently unforgiving
ceiling, intransigent to self-rescue.

Ice fog moves silently and swiftly to
drown a landscape in opaque silver-grey
beyond which lies danger, and within its
unknown depths the innocently unheeding
the carefree unaware become trapped in
jungles of twisted, warped and burning
metal haplessly driven into, unseen.
Storms now and again so persistently
unrelenting that frozen volumes topple
great trees, haul down fire-crackling hydro
lines and coat all surfaces with an
amazing layer of smooth, deadly ice.

At the best of times we revel in the
pristine white loveliness of our Northern
woods, traipse wide-legged on snowshoes,
zip freely along on skies and sleds,
exuberant calls muffled by the deep
landscape coverlet of the acquired
snowpack, the winter sun glinting
gold-and-silver through a veil of slowly
descending, starry clumps of frozen
white beauty on Canada's arras.

 

 

Generation

 

Stout as an old oak he sighs with the
exasperation of one tiring of chiding the
unbridled energy of a child. The small
boy, in the very temporary charge of his
grandfather, charges belligerently
through the crowd of his playground
peers. Curiosity aroused, demands to
be lifted, squirming to the heights, to
dangle precariously, screaming soon
enough for immediate rescue.

Park squirrels and small dogs are
fodder for his animated, raucously
shrill shouts, rushing headlong
toward the wary animals. Enthusiasm
undaunted by their skillful avoidance
he turns to clambering precariously
on swings and slides, emphasizing
entitlement with emphatic shoves.

Distracted and attracted by each newly
noticed entitlement, the boy rushes hither
and yon, greybeard clumping behind,
breathlessly. Nothing seems to stump the
child. He is rude and unconcerned as only
a child can be who has never taken heed
of gentle reminders from loving parents
that he must be aware of others as they
are of him. There is nothing frail about
this child's overarching ego propelling
him onward to the invention of discovery.

His assured ownership of all he surveys
on the adventure of life, his pursuit of
adept manipulation of objects that pique
his curiosity endlessly consuming
until boredom suddenly strikes. He caroms
off onto another enticing tangent, the elderly
man admiring, wishing he could capture
the passion and the energy, forgetting
that at some distant time he did.

 

 

Culture

Our original equipment
inherited at the birth
of the species still resonates.
Primeval humankind learned
survival techniques as the
primary imperative. Those
that prevailed, claiming
scarce resources, survived
to leave their genetic
advantages to an unbroken
line of successors, and
in turn practising the
winning formula for
succession through oppression,
denial of equality and
opportunity. To those victors
most certainly went the spoils
and for them life was good
and as it should be. Not
quite so for the far less
advantaged by Nature's
generosity. Their struggle,
their survival continues
vexingly, against the odds
of disadvantage. Bigotry,
xenophobia, racism,
persecution of castes, class
and gender, and the visceral
misery of oppression of the
meek by the bold and the
mighty continue to reveal
Nature's mischievous mystery.

 

 

Their Divined Due

 

A life of deprived misery lends itself
readily to the impoverished downtrodden
of an ignorant, militant and indigent class
to be complicit in readiness to demonstrate
to the world at large their impassioned
support of their very own oppressors;
foreign benefactors they may be, as
opposed to home tormentors, but unity
is paramount, so 'Kill The Enemy!' prevails.

A tyranny that restricts basic human
rights for those it oversees, is still
capable of manipulating the marginalized
by appealing to their tribal instincts in
defiant threats to presumed outside
usurpers of sovereignty. The sovereign
dignity of the homeland paramount.

The masses, whose needs are ignored
and whose debilitated existence is of
no concern to their dictators, yet prove
to be immensely useful when their
righteous ire and religious sensibilities
are turned in wrath against an outer,
non-tribal source which, in sympathy with
their beggarly plight offers aid seen to be
delivered by their own ruling elite.

The realpolitik of the grimy street
soiled with the accumulated waste of
dire neglect and misfortune is easily capable
of instilling pride of nation and fond
tradition in a misbegotten caste intimately
familiar with plague, pestilence and
starvation redolent of their heritage.

And from the lisping lips of children
is orchestrated venomous belligerence,
and diabolical curses as they course
along a capital's thoroughfare, hoisting
aloft the flag of defiance, chanting
"Death to the Enemy", naming foreign
countries whose humanitarian aid has
prolonged their lives but whose very own
governments have blatantly taken credit.

 

 

You Are Here

 

What is life, but our
very existence; because
we are here, there is
awareness of being,
of time and the elements
of the greatest mystery
of all, in that we
know: Out of nothing
came the grandeur of
existence when a sublime
spark of energy created
the chaos of sizzling
gases, molten rock and
metal to agonizingly
slowly coalesce, creating
within the vast space
of nothing something,
existing within time and
yawning infinity an
equally immense being
of substance hosted within
that great gaping expanse
without end, and from
some primordial gathering
of infinitely minute matter
the chemicals of life
quietly, insistently, stirred
and became the beginning
of being and life
and it is as we know it.

 

 

Unhappy Narcissist

 

The comfortable arena of denial
does its critical function proud;
saving the ego from extreme
distress and pride in self from
a needful introspection.

To void oneself of the indignity
of failure to become responsible,
one indulges in these plaintive
shirkings of cause and effect of
unacknowledged acts initiated;
sins of unrewarded commission.

But all such habits have
consequences, when paranoia breeds
defensive contempt and the slow
degradation of relations slide inevitably
from emotional intimacy to brittle
distrust and breakdown.

Convinced of faultless demeanor
an open trustingness leading to a
soft vulnerability; poor abandoned
soul, the world has turned a deaf,
uncomprehending ear to your
incomprehensible suffering miseries.

Face yourself. Speak clarity to
your reluctant inner self, unwilling
to delve deep to solve the mystery of
your goodness, charity and compassion
overwhelmed by others' cruel deceits,
not your own delusional conceits.

Be kind to yourself as a start and those
who find it in themselves to care deeply
for you as a cherished kin whose genetic
inheritance you carry in excess; find the
way to be less rapaciously irascible with
them as with yourself in despair.

Shed your bitter rancour, there can
be no grace there, nor salvation from
a lifetime of self imposed, aggravated
unhappiness with the induced conviction
that life is your uniquely personal hell.

 

 

Lonely Planet

 

Life is a heavy burden, a tired
succession of heart stops on
the journey to despair for too
many who began their passage
believing it would be otherwise.
They recognized at various
bends in the road a challenge,
an opportunity and rose, they
felt, to the occasion. Sometimes
the occasion slipped right by,
leaving the disbelievingly
incredulous survivor adrift.

They struggled forward, ever
determined to grasp new promises,
but those too, fate grasped from
their eager fingers. Yet the bereaved
hand remained an open appeal,
pleading with the spirit not to
surrender. We see these weary souls
around us, mechanical smile, blank,
uncomprehending eyes, faces
creased in the desperation of
empty existence, hungry for notice.

Their need so raw it cannot
be a mystery. There is little to be
done for no one can unravel a life
lived without joy. But little will
also herald the brief relief that
acknowledgement brings, with
inclusiveness. A welcome, however
brief and mere facade will still
reassure, found in a greeting of
genuine gladness, a sincere smile,
a lingering conversation, and an
acquaintance's fond hug, whether
physical or inherently implied.

 

 

This Unfortunate World

 

This world of ours is an awfully
frantically busy place, its
inhabitants obsessed with
their various preoccupations
all geared to fulfilling aspirational
choices made of free will and
the urge to succeed, taking
little notice of the inconveniences
posed by the casual unexpected.

In Germany, fate has caught
up to destiny with a 90-year-old
former SS assassin sentenced now
to life in prison. In Bangladesh,
a man, enraged his wife did not beg
his assent as Islam decrees before
embarking on a college degree,
taped her mouth, then proceeded
to amputate her right hand
in a righteous rage of entitlement.

Twenty-six unfortunate passengers
on an overloaded boat that
capsized in Nigeria have been
recovered by authorities. Among
the dead, a 6-year-old child. Of
those rescued who lived, was a woman
who proceeded into childbirth in a
successful full term pregnancy.

In Japan, a precocious one-year-old
toddler demonstrated his cool
mettle by directing his plummeting
body into shrubbery after his father
deliberately discarded the child at
their apartment's 10th story height.
The child, face scratched, wept in
disfavour of the peculiar new game
his father introduced to their union.

Finally, at a New York-based,
high-profile advertising agency,
two elevator occupants stood by as
another woman accessed the elevator
incompletely, her body only half
within as the door slid closed and the
elevator ascended, crushing its
unfortunate almost-passenger.