Random Selection vs Universal Conscription

 

The eerie universal attention on a natural

phenomenon that has caused the global

community, continent by continent to 

shut down, isolate, sacrifice time ingenuity 

and economies to a single focal point to stem

an unstoppable tide of mass annihilation

where a ferociously reproducing virus 

geared to its survival threatens humanity's 

has its counterpart in the not-so-distant past 

when a single ethnic minority became the

deadly target of the virus of totalitarian

ideology calling for its total destruction

and their plight went unnoticed by a world 

too busy for such distractions while the 

targets were relentlessly hunted, sequestered

trucked to holding centres until they could

most conveniently be destroyed once 

all they possessed had been looted, from 

gold and art and finally skin and hair in a

mobilization of conflict-useful confiscation

that began in slave labour and ended in 

malnutrition, disease and death. Jews

likened to pathogens that must be destroyed

lest their presence contaminate global society

terrorized and dehumanized, no defences 

to halt their organized obliteration. Now an 

unleashed pestilence grinds its way through 

continent after continent eliciting desperate 

fear and the entire world takes notice urgently

searching science for a cure to rescue humanity

from the scourge it obliviously released. 

Humanity in nature's own relentless cross

hairs, deadly variations on a dread theme.

 

 

Consequences

 

A courtesy call? How sweetly thoughtful!

How am I? Well, thank you. And how

are you? This, the extent of this new-age

conversation. At a distance, a discreet

and obligatory social and physical divide

beyond which no one should venture as

a matter of dire necessity, lest the vicious

virus that threatens humanity finds the

entrance it voraciously seeks to yet another

human interior where it plays havoc with

the immune system, handily overcomes

the respiratory organs nature thoughtfully

designed to sustain life as much as your

beating heart and blood-flow, initiating

a sinister, rapid descent of morbidity and

yet another life is lost. That nightmare

scenario is lost on no one, and prevention

embraces physical distancing and you cannot

now hug your mother, kiss your grandchild

enjoy meals together, celebrate cardinal

events of great symbolism to hope and

renewal together in the wish that you and

they will somehow manage to survive

this suspenseful ordeal imposed upon an

unready world that misread consequences.

 

 

The White Coat

 

For those with chronic illness impelled to attend 

a place of healing and comfort, hospitals resemble

institutions of religious faith where parishioners 

gather seeking direction and assurance from a higher

order whose earthly representative is regarded 

as an emissary from god. No less is the medical

practitioner considered a demi-god healing the ill

thrusting the spectre of the Grim Reaper away from

contention. And so doctors have become priests

of health, a position to which they accustom themselves

in entitlements of venerated power over death

taking their very special place in public trust. Until

nature presumed to retrieve for herself the overlooked 

reality as arbiter of existence, creator of all that is

in whom alone divine authority rests, thrusting the

world of man into a mad dilemma of its own 

devising where divine intermediaries, of faith and 

medicine find themselves helpless and what's more 

become themselves vulnerable targets reducing their

status to mere expendable human beings. There the 

story does not end for delving deep into their psyches 

and professions, suppressing fear and their own

humanity they rise to the occasion embracing their

colleagues while struggling desperately  to own 

the reputation they burnished to rescue humanity.

 

The Messenger

 

This is the nature we adore. That

gentler, nurturing, creative aspect

and not the capricious, indifferent

creator who devised an original

blueprint for existence then left her

creations to fend for themselves

against the predatory pathogens she

also created as part of her ineffable

kingdom of multitudinous lifeforms

many she abandons to a brief fate

others she idly observes insisting on 

surviving using the very tools she

invested in them, varying from one 

creature to another, but all, each and 

every one interrelated and mutually

benefiting despite sacrifices beyond

their capacity to escape. Gentle nature 

graciously offers symbols of rebirth 

and hope, in the first green spears of plants 

probing their presence out of the thawed 

soil in winter's hoary wake and the 

ethereal trilling of a cardinal exuberantly 

informing the world that yes, winter 

has finally departed and spring has arrived.

 

 

Sleep Walking

 

This stiff-upper-lip voice

floating at me

 

through my radio

 

this upper-class British voice

 

that I alternately envy and deride

 

describing new research

 

into the incidence of sleep-walking

 

and one of the symptoms

 

one of the ways you can tell

 

is by the victim's (?) GLAZED EYES

 

Is that how?

 

Could be my life is one

 

whole sleep-walking experience.

 

And he goes on to say

 

it's a fallacy, they don't die of shock

 

if precipitately

 

brought out of their sleep-walking

 

and goes on to give an example

 

of some woman who had an 'unfortunate'

 

tendency to sleep-walk

 

in the wee hours of the morning

 

- naked - and that's

 

how her husband invariably discovered her

 

walking the streets, naked.

 

"It distressed her husband enormously"

 

the voice said. Well, yes it would.

 

But women are like that

 

always dreaming of

 

walking the streets

 

though few of us do it

 

naked

 

and fewer yet

 

die of mortification when

 

precipitately brought to reality.

 

 

Biodegradation

 

We are a conflicted species in many

ways, an inheritance bequeathed to all

living things endowed with the capacity

to adapt so they may above all things

survive in an atmosphere that offers

that capacity to those with few scruples

over gathering sustenance depriving

other life forms in the process. We can

always point to nature as responsible for

our belligerence across borders clinging

to tribe and clan, perceiving all others

as competitors, opponents, enemies

whose plans of territorial aggression

must be countered, lest we suffer for we

are the righteous and all others are the

blights upon humanity. By nature we are

also gregarious finding comfort and no

little security in the company of others

like ourselves -- none others need apply.

Now, alarmingly suddenly a new enemy

has surfaced whose conquest of humanity

makes no distinctions between borders

and we quail before its onslaught, felling

us one by one in horrific numbers. Now

we protect ourselves by disowning the

company of others, cloistering ourselves

in our little caves, quaking with fear.

 

 

Lost and Found

 

 

Look! There they are! There, and there

and there. Be still, my heart... Ah, yes

the usual suspects. Furtive? No, triumphant!

It's nature's celebrated conspiracy of spring

renewal, and all her accomplices have

been alerted, from the sun to the spinning

Earth, the wind and the rain. A splendid

group effort of absolutely divine direction.

Winter has taken of late to creeping away

while obstinately refusing to pick up speed

but the inevitable is the inevitable and even

that cranky misery knows its time is up.

Snow and ice both receding under the sun's

imperious glare, the soothing rain and rising

temperatures. Warming the soil, thawing

the latent vegetation slowly awakening

beginning their green-spear thrusts toward

a warming atmosphere prepared to receive

them as nature nurtures the release clockwork

of another spring bringing food and flowers

alive once again -- joy to gardeners' hearts.

 

 

It's Not Necessarily So

 

It's Not Necessarily So

But rather of necessity. We are equipped

with certain emotions for a reason not

merely because they make us human

but because they protect our humanness.

So that famous old adage so smugly

trotted out at times of viral public concern

that There Is Nothing To Fear But Fear

Itself is just that; smug and trite when

indeed there are times when the very fact is

fear prepares us for the need to guard

ourselves from what may conceivably be

certain doom. Nature gifted us with a

sense of caution that fear electrifies

warning us of impending danger. As we

evolved so did the world we live in; as

threats from predators in the wild alarmed

and taught us vigilance and discretion in

our movements to the present when civil

life in our modern era is brought to a

screeching halt with the sudden presence

of a silent deadly biological threat unseen

but lurking as a sinister infection whose

purpose is invasion and replication, in the 

process far outdistancing any threat from 

marauding wildlife yet in fact an infectious 

agent of wildlife that humans hunt to consume.

The dread that now consumes us is fear.

 

 

The Message is the Medium

 

My friend tells me

it's been nice 

knowing me all these years.

With a pat on the arm

he says I've

been a good sport

and even

pleasant company.

That's how I know

he's just recalled

         the date

and like last year

and the one before

has forgotten

to get me an 

anniversary gift.

The surface child

acquisitive me

never fails to be 

disappointed; yet

      somehow their

belatedness and haste

doesn't make the words

tripping hopefully

from his familiar mouth

sound any less sincere.

He sincerely hopes

I won't strike a

        tragic pose of

           benign neglect

weep tears of self-pity

like last year.

Strange how some things

never change.         Odd

how we never 

seem to learn.        Nice

that life goes on

any old how.

 

 

We May Yet Hope

 

We tried our best

and believed

we taught our children

sensitivity, intelligence

appreciation toward

the benefits of hard work

and a fine aesthetic sense.

The shock!

to discover

on the dart board

passed so many times

never before noticed

stapled photographs

at points of

highest benefit.

She to whom

we owe allegiance

smiling deathlessly

her face pockmarked

by unerringly

directed darts.

And there they are

the Prime Minister

and all those elected

to high posts in government

irremediably scarred

barely recognizable.

Does this behaviour

defy patriotism?

Have we raised a

viper's nest of anarchists?

 

Influencing Mores

 

Social distancing was once the sole

baileywick of the cultural and social

elite who wouldn't dream of mixing

it up with social and cultural inferiors.

Neighbours who got to know one another

all too well might on occasion begin to

practise social distancing. Mothers were

notorious for instructing their little

Jimmys and Nancys not to play with

those nasty children of Jewish, Black

or immigrant parentage lest they be

contaminated by whatever character

flaws their race was known and despised

for. Eventually a classless system of

equality prevailed and it was the poor

and the ignorant who became the social

outcasts whose presence one distanced

oneself from while celebrity culture

embraced all, oblivious of heritage. Now

the yellow peril that racist seers warned

of while the world watched as its culture

of sacrifice and work ethic rocketed

it into superpower status inadvertently

unleashed a deadly menace it refuses

to own returning the world community

to its waning isolationist defence against

the demon of morbid contamination.

 

 

Castaway

 

Who ever might have imagined

that the ancient oblate spheroid that

resulted when a vacuum containing

nothing created a cosmic explosion

casting gases and dust in a great arc to 

cool and become our home, a rock of

refuge for nature's creations where we

would thrive and mature, populating

continents, sailing its seas, discovering

and conquering, would find us now in

such peril? Who might have imagined

there to be so many islands on Planet

Earth, each of them now claimed by

every human now alive and hoping to

remain that way clings to, isolating

ourselves from one another to elude

the stalking of the silent, deadly virus

that has invaded, threatening our existence

as with each tide of increase it succeeds in

achieving habitation of another host who

in turn transmits its pathogenic guest

onward in its predatory quest to multiply

and destroy, a conquest it gains unless

prospective hosts sequester themselves 

to starve its intent and stave off death.

 

 

On Notice

There's a reason why antagonists are

portrayed to reflect the regard in which they

are  held in popular opinion. As a northern

people we absorb the lessons of intimacy

with nature welcoming the inevitable. In

that respect the seasons' arrival at nature's

designated times are accepted and celebrated.

Each of the seasons has their purpose and

becomes a welcomed presence. Only Old Man

Winter seems predisposed to overstay his

welcome. On arrival we rejoice and indulge

in a multitude of leisure pursuits geared to

advantaging the presence of cold, wind and

snow, exulting in the beauty surrounding us

and the invitation to make use of the lofty

white coverlet that puts the land to rest. The

indulgences of  winter comfort wear thin

however as time moves forward leaving us

less bewitched by cold, ice and raging winds

when the arrival of spring lifts our spirits

and we yearn for the sight of verdant fields

and forests to replace the presence of snow

grimed by age and atmosphere. Winter placed

on notice of evacuation can be a hard sell

and nothing seems to please the departing

season quite so much as lingering cold and 

snowfalls topping up the vanishing snowpack.

While winter grudgingly packs up his baggage

of ice, snarling wind and freezing temperature

he leaves a parting message: I'll be back.

 

 

 

Yesterday's Child

 

Fiddleheads in the garden

slowly unfurling

Lilies-of-the-Valley

not yet belling

the Manchu Cherry

sprinkling white confetti

on the vibrant green

of urgent grass

and swallows executing

their preying arabesque

while beyond the

sun, a pyromaniac's frantic dream

slips behind the houses.

Sitting idly on the swing

spring air filters

through the maple's

tender thrusts

as bees target straight for home

and the mesmerizing hum

of the neighbour's mower

returns growth to order.

The children

never recall other years

only living in the warmth

of the breeze

pulling stray hairs

beyond the spiralling

loops of the bicycle.

Memory of another child

yaps close behind the

flushed faces of

this spring day's children.

 

 

Voyage to Strange Latitudes

 

In the strange latitudes

of that hemisphere

animals wear shifting eyes

wind blows a hollow song

through aeolian strings

set on a razor's edge.

             There

the newborn adorn

dark furniture like a

ship captain's parlour

displaying mementos

of exotic voyages;

mewling objects d'art

             and

love is played at feelingly

coevals plucking sole eyes

doing the rounds

in comradely fashion

so all can see through

fortune's mists. 

             There

mountains blossom

bright thorn flowers

earth opens welcome

chasms for escape from

terrifying sameness.

In that country

trespasses are welcome

in boiling cauldrons

spitting primal brew

             and

heat brings saline dew

to unsuspecting brows.

 

 

Windows to the Universe

 

In the sphere of culture and heritage

of primitive provenance there is

vast irreconcilability between the

past and the present, one venerated

the other basking in blasphemy. As

when ancient civilizations viewing

the heavens recognized the abode of

the gods, sacred and obscure, hidden

from human eyes and knowledge

a veritable closed book to be worshipped

as humanity lives its humble existence

below. The great unknowable heights

of the Earth's geology shared with

the heavens all the godly sanctities

demanding obeisance and worship

as remote from human habitation one

from the other until humanity obsessed

over the existence of all that is and was

and will ever be, sending rude emissaries

to the sacred heights on missions of

conquest of noble pinnacles of granite

and having achieved those goals

using grand summits to house views

of the cosmos to unlock nature's secrets

in the process alerting the gods whom

peering humankind must not enrage.

 

 

Talking Back

 

I thought that

talking to photographs

of dear departed

was the last desperate act

of a senile mind

never realizing that

people locked away in their heads

often have nowhere else to turn.

I always dreamed about a

captive audience to receive

my unprotected thoughts

so wrote this fellow

whose poem had been so

poignant. He responded

saying I'd been the

only one to answer

the silent echo of his need

behind bars of steel.

Letters chatted back and forth

and one stranger whose body

was a prisoner

communed with another

whose head was also

that way. He wrote

wistfully of memory

of birds winging forests

and his incarcerated

birthday celebration.

In the last letter he

asked me to wish him luck

getting ready to put on kneepads

go before his parole board.

Looks like he's no longer

sending letters in search

of captive company. Guess

he doesn't need me anymore.

Wonder now if photographs

ever appear to talk back.

 

 

Arras

 

The waters rush

white-capped and lunatic

over granite boulders

speaking eloquently

of erosion

and infinity.

       The lonely cry

       of a flighting bird

       shatters the air.

Willows stand dank

roots entrenched

in the timeless brew

flinging arms

at the careless sun.

Winds bend long grasses

whiskering the lip

of the waters.

       Creatures dart headlong

       to join the element

       they know best.

This landscape evolves

a rich and humid

syllabary

of forgotten tongues.