Oppression, Persecution, Revolt

 

Tyrannical rulers invent the rules of their

realm starting with their reliance that those

whose lives they dictate meekly defer to

those with state power knowing full well

the default of inevitable arrest, imprisonment

torture and death declaring them enemies of

the state. Should an almighty deity be invoked

as proof the tyrants are vested with godly

authority, all the greater obeisance and

obedience follows. But even the oppressed

and the downtrodden will recognize limits

to their despairing conditions when resignation

impulsively transforms into viral outrage, their

humiliation and powerlessness sparks into

flaming dissent and a mass revolt erupts

when one and then another domestic atrocity

too many leaves them reeling in disbelief

at the excess of inhumanity they are subjected

to with casual ease. Then, the tide turns when

the tyrants understand the power of numbers

reflecting an unstoppable tide of rejection

and a universal call for the regime's downfall.

Initial brutality, the swift response to quell the

riots fail, leaving the rulers to quail in dismay

offer profound apologies, promise reform in

deference to the peoples' wishes but nothing

can now defuse the volcanic eruption of human

grief and rage prepared to destroy those whose

preoccupation has too long been the ultimate

challenge of vanquishing the human spirit.

 

 

I Think, Therefore I Am

17th-century, Consciousness, Robert Fludd

What peculiar quirks nature has devised in

her impeccable creation, endowing me and

thee with consciousness, awareness, the

capacity to think and to plan, to imagine and

to theorize, exercising cerebral function as

though we are not merely one with nature

but perhaps nature itself. As a powerful

instrument forever challenging understanding

of what, where and how we fit into the world

around us, and how that world exists in a vast

constellation of other worlds, of stars and volatile

gases and minerals revolving and evolving, our

thought processes explore the vastness of the

unknown, theorizing and experimenting as

though we were not ourselves merely the dust

of exploding stars but the creator of all that

exists. Imagine this: theoretical physicists

studying quantum mechanics play with the

notion of the unknown of creation and its

sister existence in the wan belief that what

we think of as consciousness is but an illusion

as is the world we inhabit, ourselves included

for without our observance creating that

presence it would not, perforce exist. Really.

 

Beware The Urban Forest

 

They are sagacious creatures, bold and

masters of strategy as befits those of

the animal kingdom's predators. Much

after all, depends on their practised

hunting habits, for in their ancestral

habitat they maintain a balance in the

presence of creatures they stalk. They

are also particularly adaptable, since

their once-wild geography was invaded

and with little interest in seeking refuge

from interlopers they have become

extremely skilled at slinking about in

the background making full use of the

same green spaces so valued by other

animal species including man. Human

habitation in close proximity to those

natural places where they can den and

procreate is of little account for they

are also adept at scavenging albeit not

preferentially. Their appearance is

similar to that of the dogs that people

walk in natural settings, oblivious to

the presence of untamed canids though

the dogs detect their presence alerting

themselves that long-distance cousins

are about, seldom imagining themselves

prey. Silently lurk the coyotes awaiting

opportunities; one offering the prospect

of play-time friendly dogs are eager to

indulge in, unaware that others unseen

follow behind fully prepared for action.

 

 

Where Are You?

 

 

They're there, simply there, though not
often seen when geography creates distance.
A vague acknowledgement that one has
sisters and brothers that time has
distanced. Absence makes memory
fainter, not necessarily fonder and little
time and emotion is harnessed to stray
thoughts of their lack of presence, despite
early shared familial experiences.

Yet, as we age and our lives move ever
yet tangentially, there arises the piquant
sadness of longing for something lost and
neglected. With age comes illness and
emotional deprivations; the realization
that we are alone, the inspiration to
re-discover lost siblings, the urge and
the spur to act, to reach out, to recover.

Shared blood and belonging now entreats
the elderly to reach back in time and
memory, to find that elusive comfort, the
mutual sympathy siblings harbour for one
another as they move inexorably toward
life's concluding stages. The instant grasping
of rapport re-visited, the tenderness, the
unspoken grief and gratitude, all there
awaiting that call to rescind distance
and emotional wavering of uncertainty.

There is much to say, to express, to
commiserate with, to update and to pledge
for the future. To casually, carelessly lose
grasp of those binding ties an error in
judgement reflecting bereft values and a life
too concerned with surface issues of scant
moment. To restore the loss requires a
simple resolution: I am here, where are you?
Please, meet me half way to our future. 

 

 

National Dilemmas

 

  Photograph: Sombo Sombo/Alamy

In poverty-stricken countries of the world

 

which we may no longer refer to as Third World 

 
countries but rather make full use of the

 
euphemism 'emerging economies', there is one

 
inexhaustible natural resource the envy of 

 
First World economic nations; the growth

 
steady and reliable, of their populations where 

 
the natural increase grows and grows despite

 
privation, food scarcity, joblessness and lack 

 
of medical care and the unfortunate loss of life

 
accompanying those lacks. In those countries 

 
governed either by incompetents or a hierarchy

 
of privileged elites for whom nothing of concrete

 
value lacks, the great unwashed for whom

 
sanitation, potable water, basic foodstuffs, power

 
and health care remain beyond imagination it's 

 
live or perish as fortune rolls her dice, and  hope

 
is lost. Yet wealthy nations grapple with their

 
confounding statistics that emphasize population

 
replacement expectations remain mysteriously

 
misplaced for as the aged die, fewer are born to 

 
replace them. This, even as administrations enact

 
legislation and expend treasury to enhance

 
the prospect of child-bearing, offering measures

 
inconceivable to those others, even while

 
residents of wealthy nations sneer at their

 
subsidies, the child care provisions, the health

 
care, the paid parental leave, as insufficient

 
in depth and quantity as a persuasive gambit.

 

 

Settling Into Winter

 

Wickedly bad tempered of late
she has sent one of her acolytes
to vent his ill tempest upon us
simply to remind, lest we forget
what forces they are that obey
Nature, corresponding to our
frail-minded clinging to puny
humankind's feeble management.

That ill wind, in intense
intercourse with a tempestuously
plunging atmosphere, and a
side dalliance with those
battered, bruised clouds venting
vapour over the land
has us cringing in paroxysms
of mortal distaste.

Trees surrender to naked despair.
Fish dive deep and anxiously hover.
Birds make frantic haste
to leave this familiar space.
While insects burrow deep
to wait out the annual tantrum.

Creatures of the forest gather
what they may to make
themselves scarce as the
landscape inexorably alters. We
grimace at the discomfort of
increasing displays of distemper.

Cringe before her directed onslaughts
of frigid air, wild wind, icy sleet, rain
and snow. Like other animals
we wait out the angry funk.
Awaiting opportunity to resume
the ease of changeable
Nature's goodly graces. 

 

 

Unquestioned Faith

 

William Blake

What a conundrum it is that the human psyche

finds no rest within its spirit in the absence of

the recognition of faith in a spiritual and heavenly

instructor whose divine guidance resonates in 

the human soul with gratitude that such an

all-powerful spirit, one whose nature it is to 

permit the existence of all that is and to grant

humanity exceptional stewardship of all

creation as the centre of the universal being

of all that is and will ever be, favoured as they

are with the instruction to worship none other

for all are false posing as prophets claiming

kinship with the almighty one, of whom there

is none other. Peace and loving kindness the 

primary observation of this tender god in whose 

name and thunderously pious injunctions to

follow and bear witness bringing others to his 

celestial knee, in the process striking the terror 

of anger in no wise suppressed should human 

actions displease the spirit in whose name peace

and loving kindness is proffered to all, even the

misguided, choosing to abstain from serving 

god's will, who for their unfortunate choice must 

vacate life, for what the holy spirit has created

that same spirit can uncreate, with the avid

helpfulness of those of unquestioned verities.

 

 

Mistress of the Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardens, muted of colour
form, texture, fragrance
are now a collapsed
architecture, delighting us
no longer as fall deepens
into garden-bleak winter.

Gone the thriving, brilliant
choreography, the boundless
exuberance of bulbs and tubers
bursting into flower, the shrubs
and fruit trees showering petals
transformed into luscious fruit.

The garden now is pallid
exhausted, its summer audition
long past, the chorus of blooms
extinguished, no encores as the
final departure of leafy canopy
has descended echoing dismay.

The curtain is prepared now to fall.
The last bow and curtsy executed
as nature asserts sovereignty.
Casually deflects assumptions our
efforts reflected ownership
of carefully plotted, nurtured
triumphant gardenscapes.

There is no perpetuity here, merely
the gardener's eccentricity in believing
she exerted control over the order of
her gardening efforts. A brief, illusory
delusion, a borrowed vision, a hallowed
trust now returned to nature
and winter's ascendancy.

 

Arming The Faithful

 

In a world obsessed with the wonders

of high tech, give some thought to the

preoccupation of Islam's ventures in faith

introducing to the world the advances

that can be made in asymmetrical

warfare with the use of low-tech and

no-tech, simply ingeniously using tools

at hand, beginning with tasking the devout

to prove the strength of their faith in jihad

with the ultimate sacrifice exalted in

the noble robes of martyrdom and heroism

to which end suicide vests become the

explosive devices of first choice followed

in haste by the simple medium of

improvised explosive devices as an

example, and for truly maximum impact

in the efficacy of holy wars astutely

diverting passenger jets as missiles 

aiming to strike symbolic high-rise 

edifices housing thousands of those

noncompliant non-believers as their just due

for insulting the Prophet. And during times

of high tension confronted by powerful

states whose enmity augers conventional

warfare their armaments well equipped

to extinguish the ambitions of conquest

full use of deadly missiles in planned

mass slaughter to send the world into

disbelief at the commission of war crimes

yet not seen as such by the perpetrators who

profess no responsibility for the carnage

and cast blame on those surreptitiously

assaulted by proxy militias on order

from none other than the sacred scripts

of a holy spirit whose disciples are legion.

 

The Dark Curtain of Night

 

This untouched forest is a gift to nearby urban

dwellers though most are oblivious of its

presence on the outskirts of a large metropolitan

city, preserved as a natural setting for wildlife

thanks to its geology, unwelcoming to the

plans of developers where nature has devised

a deep and long, winding ravine where

conifers and deciduous trees grow large and

plentiful and generations of nature lovers

have forged trails through the once-dense

underbrush absent now of grouse and pheasant

still visited by hawks and owls, those avian

hunters whose presence so alarms songbirds.

Deer are now seldom seen as the urban mass

has grown tighter around the nature preserve

but coyotes find there a perfect habitat teeming

with small furred wildlife blithely furnishing

nests with vulnerable offspring. The forest

interior is perpetually dim and fantastical

in winter, snugly comforted with layers of

snow -- and daylight hours short, dusk exerting

its presence in the low hum of murmurs and

sighs, the wind soughing through branches and

boughs, animals and birds settling down

awaiting the dark curtain of nightfall.

 

 

 

Tell Me This

 

If all the world's a stage, good bard and

we play out our lives in hopes and fears

the drama's on us, whether it be the

sadness imposed when ill fate becomes

us or the joy that ensues when good

fortune beams its best our way. We

aspire and trust, anticipate and forge

a future as best we can never knowing

the outcome as actors on life's stage.

So if life is a theatre of happenstance

in our waking hours what then is

sleep when our subconscious elevates

our minds to another dimension always

familiar, sometimes fraught and very

occasionally brimming with happy

intimates. To sleep, perchance to

dream, and we do, hoping that we may

bypass the demons haunting our psyches

in favour of the gentleness of love and

nostalgia in the understanding that life

is prelude to eternal dreams. Unless

of course dreams are the entry to life?

Tell me do, can we enjoy one lacking

the presence of the mysterious other?

 

 

The Urban Wilderness

 

 

It was a natural wilderness seldom

penetrated, a large, extended gash in

the earth, a thickly forested landscape

surrounded by farms on land long

settled and arable aside from the

resistant geology of the ravine. Urban

sprawl displaced the farms but nothing

could displace the ravine and the forest

and the water coursing through the ravine

floor. In that forest groundbirds flourished

alongside a panoply of large and small furry

creatures alongside predators both winged

and furred. As houses were built on the

ravine's perimeter migratory corridors

closed and deer became scarce though

more adaptable creatures remained

receptive to an extended food source

cadged from human waste. Residents of

nearby neighbourhoods valued the forest

as a recreational haven where dogs could be

free to spurt into the forest interior and

emerge exercised and happy. Foxes and

raccoons abounded alongside smaller fry

until the abundance of wildlife contracted

when coyotes adopted the habitat treasured

by all. Now, companion dogs' exquisitely

sensitive detection senses are on alert

quietly detecting the presence of alpha

predators bold enough to confront both

dogs and their walkers confident in their

natural rights in this still-wild haven.

 

 

Winter's Frozen Breath

 

Above, a wide, deep wash of blue.
Not a wisp of cloud to mar this
day's stunning perfection. This
was today's message to us.
Frigid temperatures reign
thanks to the absence of cloud
trapping scant winter heat below.

We are lashed by the icy fingers
of winds in high dudgeon,
knocking the heads of the
forest trees and slicing its fire
across our revealed flesh; eyes
weeping, foreheads frozen.

Dried flower stalks bow in
humble homage to the
insistent, imperious wind.
Gossamer veils of snow
languorously part from
laden spruce boughs.

Oblivious, in their winter
element, the minuscule, dainty
black, grey and white shapes
of chickadees flit from branch
to branch, calling their delight
with their environment.

The creek running through
our Ontario wooded ravine in
this Ottawa Valley is frozen fast,
its glaring surface reflecting
the sun's serendipitous presence
as we lope along snow-padded trails.

We have company this day;
silent, elongated, gracefully
following, then leading us forward.
Our shadows step lively, unaffected
by the chill, the ferocity of wind.
Brought to life by the sun's
life-affirming presence.

 

 

Eugenics

 

So many times
we passed that place
knowing it was there
not really caring
          then

in young manhood
you draped your bones
on the pristine sheet
of the cagesided bed
and we hovered
in anguished disbelief

saw through a mist
a lifeline pierce
your transparent wrist
           and
the steady drop
transfixed us

this was reality.

Gently the doctor probed
your beloved frame
our foggy memories
for family history
and we waited release
from the dreadful error.

      Now every day
life sustaining injections
balance your present
consolidate your future. Now
every day we note
your altered need
vital dependence.

Daily we tread
a quicksand
in shades of fear and hope
    reading you
like a barometer.

My Daughter My Stranger

 

There was a time not long ago

    (only a year in fact)

When she hated everyone else's

poison wafting her way. She used

to say cigarettes are dangerous.

Even tried to persuade her friends. 

 

We always had a good understanding

me and my daughter. She has a

     talent for the flute

     and this summer I bought her

a piccolo. Her favourite record

 

was Cimeros's double-flute

     concerto. Her needle-adept fingers

sewed embroideries far finer than

     my young fingers ever did.

This year she's a senior. 

 

She's embroidered a joint

     its smoke spiralling up the

     leg of her faded jeans. Our

house rocks with Alice Cooper's

ghastly lyrics. Every evening now

 

she's out back in the park

     behind our house, here in this

middle-class hamlet. A crowd of

boys and girls. Music blares the

     autumn air. Matches flare the dark

 

to light the weeds. She's high.

     (she gets  high on crowds

          and popularity.)

 'Everyone thinks I'm a stoner'

she tells me laughing. 'It's

my clothes     my fuzzy hair

 

         and the way I  talk.' My

daughter has learned. She knows

how to disarm my wary thoughts. Now

my neighbour with the sniffing nose

     tells her neighbours that my daughter

 

is a bad influence on theirs. I

remember her own daughter. Her way

was tight-lipped with the girl

          and high-voiced.

She always said the reason her girl

 

ran wild was because the girl was

adopted. Never can trust strange genes. 

 

 

Disarmament

 

Did you know

that the Sea Cucumber

to deflect a pursuer

can regurgitate

its stomach?

 

And did you know that

female monkeys 

to appease belligerent

males turn backside up

in coy invitation?

 

In this way has nature

armed the otherwise

defenceless.

 

Did  you know

the Sea Cucumber

grows a new stomach

and survives. The

monkey raises the

 

fruit of her

propitiatory act.

And did you know

that when you

thunder through the

 

peace of my

existence I offer

myself to

placate the beast.

 

Nature has prepared us

to meet each other.

Did  you know

I am armed with love? 

 

 

Thy Brother's Keeper

 

They are everywhere, in impoverished

countries whose cities strain with mass

humanity and in countries of the wealthy

developed world where technology and

industry has created immense wealth yet

they roam the streets, eat in the streets

sleep on the streets, under highway bridges

and passes, fall in love, become violent 

with one another and bystanders alike

peddle and use drugs and die in the streets

the growing army of the homeless, named 

by polite society, the 'unhoused'. Transient

lives of gross humanity whom misfortune

has led astray and whom the settled and 

the fortunate regard with empathy until

they approach too intimately and suddenly

appear threatening, though some can be

since they suffer from mental illness and

who can predict when that psychosis will

spark into rage and claim a hapless victim?

They become the enemy of good order

their misfortunes failing to excite the

sympathy their conditions demand when

funding and good intentions fail to serve

their needs and relieve society of their

oppressive, guilt-inducing, angry presence.

 

 

Lightening Up

 

They burden the world with their tedious

presence and with a litany of faults so

numerous they are inexhaustible, far too

many to count and in their aggregate account

for the disdain in which they are held and 

always have been, for who among the world's

inhabitants wishes to live among people so

cunning and forever scheming that there can 

be no peace, no rest from concerns that the

world may soon succumb to the plots they

conceive and strive to achieve to the known

detriment of all others. Yet the most irritating

aspect of having them live alongside others 

is habitual whining of being discriminated 

against as though their manner doesn't invite

just that very thing. For they have no sense of

humour, none whatever, and among their

many other faults is their unforgiving sour

sense of entitlement that slights never come

their way, even when those they accuse of 

the age-old bugbear of anti-Semitism inform

them that the messages they take to be racist

are merely attempts at humour and they really

should you know, make an effort to lighten up.

 

The Wisdom of Emotion

Bear with me, I'm doing my best...

You wouldn't be gaming nature...?

That life force that knows best how

its creatures will develop, we assume.

You suffer because humankind is

gregarious and acceptance is vital to

the satisfaction of life with companions

and to be shunned and mocked runs

counter to the kind of emotional needs

we all wish fulfilled. Please understand

I am happy for you that dark thoughts

of self-harm no longer cloud your

future. Public health dollars so much

in demand to stem the tide of so

many human ills are no doubt well

spent in expanding care and comfort

with your dilemma allowing you to

become 'yourself', no longer male, a

condition of your birth that had never

you say, suited the inner you. Having

always considered yourself female

however, I am struggling with the 

fact that you fathered two children

and now that you have transitioned

those children have a 'mamma' and a

'mother'. Is this all perfectly rational?

 Ah, but then, who ever claimed we 

humans treasure rationality over the   

 allure of emotional fulfillment?

 

The Last Word

 

Few among us is capable of reacting

with perfect equanimity when our

considered and rational points of view

are challenged by those interrupting a

conversation to make observations of

their own that turn the conversation in

another direction entirely. Civility does

demand the courtesy of listening but it

does not insist that one respond. On the

other hand if impulse and the conceit of

feeling it required to demonstrate your

understanding of the situation in the

round that response is forthcoming then

you deserve the sniping that follows. In

the event that the third party is having a

very bad day and has turned their cranky

mood in your direction the next salvo

can be more than awkward and puzzling

all the more so when rank is pulled

through the medium of academic 

credentials of which you have none. Yet

you respond as civilly as possible only

to receive yet another snippy comment

far more deserving of terminating the

conversation carried out on line. And

then you sit back awaiting what can only

be another wretched accusation veiled

in scholarly comment, planning this time

to use wit and condescension that would

devastate your interlocutor. You wait.

And you await that opportunity. But it

fails to arrive and opportunity is lost.

 

 

The Silence of Snow

 

Wind spurts fierce thrusts compelling
the snow to drift languidly and
mound into voluptuous landscapes
while evergreen boughs heavy
with snow release great clumps
themselves springing to height.

Lazy clouds of snow drizzle
the landscape. Falling clumps freckling
the grey sky, shifting clouds to
pleasure the insistent sun. Shafts
of light haze through the forest,
firing the snow to silver crystals.

Through the soft and gentle
stillness, the staccato of a hairy,
red-capped woodpecker. Snow
generously comforts a recently-bereaved
copse of elm, maple and poplar,
naked no longer. Trunks grey,
black and brown stippled
gloriously-blinding white.

Desiccated, bright orange bittersweet
fruit cluster along their vines'
chokehold on prickly Hawthorns.
Their haws shy against the
flamboyance of the others.
The creek drifts clear and tinkling
over gathered fall detritus
now heavily banked in snow.

A raven crosses the undecided sky,
its raucous call shredding the silence
swift body a black arrow true to its mark.
Soon, snow-muted silence regains
its imperious reign.