Forbidden

 

This is your government/s calling. Not to 

seem impolite but there are certain verities

now to be emphasized in a sudden new world 

we have inherited. Your mucous membranes

are your very own affair. Keep it that way. 

Lubricating emissions from facial orifices 

whether by song or sage advice are no longer 

part and parcel of social fare. The dulcet tones 

of your voice must henceforth be muted -- at 

a distance. Verbal dexterity is admirable and 

texting is its mode of transfer. Do not abridge 

the distances recommended. Do not have the 

temerity to disobey health authorities and 

municipal bylaws for the penalties will be 

swift and painful. You may remain in the 

comfort of your home surrounded -- or not 

-- by meaningful others. You may not exit 

that domicile other than for vital affairs which 

must be brief and necessary. Furthermore 

we regret to inform you that access to various 

venues are off limits for ... the duration. Gyms

public parks, pubs and restaurants, hairdressers

golf, sport arenas, concert halls, museums, art

galleries, libraries, colleges and schools. There

are rules to be followed. You are not to gather

but you may contact us when you see others

that do. You must not: have a heart attack

contract cancer, be seized with a stroke, feign

appendicitis -- for our hospitals have geared for a

crisis. On the other  hand you may become

infected with COVID-19 in which case you

will be welcomed at your local hospital

emergency room. Be well, stay safe. Over and

out.Your faithful servants, here to help you.

 

 

Twilight

 

As though aware 

of its role as intermediary

twilight enters cautiously

assuming nothing

leaving assertiveness to its successor

knowing diplomacy as an

asset. At first unnoticed

it insinuates itself

between a day of sun and warmth

...this spring day so pleasurable

to those populating the landscape...

and the unknown darkness

of night. The transition

ripe with the stealth of guilt

depriving all who note the dismay

of another day gone

to make way for night

while twilight

slinks away 

its assigned task

skillfully completed

no hard feelings

simply doing its job

sinking day into night.

 

 

The Great Few

 

They are vanishingly few 

in number yet their will-o-the-wisp

presence illuminates the world

as does the sun bursting

behind dark clouds

those dark clouds a metaphor

for humanity's dense and dark

unwillingness to open

itself to the light of reason

choosing instead the ever

renascent sinister dim corridors

of ignorance. Those shining stars

with their clarity of vision

each brought humanity closer

to an end-goal of thought

and action unobscured by a web

of suspicion and hostility 

hoisting the occupants of the

world toward the pinnacles

of science, philosophy and art

selflessly using their genius to

benefit all before their bright light

of being expired. While they are

venerated for their exceptionalism

exalted above the common man

the burden of civilization

time and again exhausts the great

uncommitted in a conflicted

balance of self and the other

building once again the pyre of

hateful bile singeing no one's

conscience in a world aflame.

 

 

Abject Grief

 

Grieving complete with accusations

of suboptimal care for the

elderly. Not an instance of

familial elder-abuse in the usual

sense, however ... rather a family

decision to farm out care

for a beloved senior

someone's father

someone's grandmother

for this is an era when the aged

dread the inevitable. Not in

this instance only the inevitability

of growing old and infirm

but the family council's decision

that none among them has the

time and empathy to spare

to invite a beloved father or mother

or both to live among them directly

in the family home for there are so

many distractions in life calling

for attention and aspirations to be fulfilled

let alone duties to one another and one's

offspring, there is no room nor

patience to spare offering a respite

to white hair and curved spine.

There is huge profit to be gained

by entrepreneurs offering TLC

by ill-paid attendants trained to

empathize with family and proffer

necessities to the vulnerable aged

in this new era of loving neglect

when the responsibility of infectious

death can be laid at the doorstep of 

care homes, bereaved families beating

their breasts with outrage that their

dearly beloveds' needs were failed by

others ... their trust betrayed 

just as they betrayed their elders'. 

Introspection

 

In all fairness, in point of fact actually the greatest

likelihood in the answer to your inner-directed

query is that yes, there have been insurmountable

barriers, the very emotional distance erected

between yourself and others that have dictated

over the years none may enter the inner sanctum

of your privacy. Not that you ever harboured

intention to shut yourself away from others

nor be as gracious and social to others as you

expect civil people to be. Your sense of self

is that of an introvert willing to be socially

compliant while spurning a more robust and

open invitation to others to feel comfortable in

your presence. You too much value the comfort

you find in your own mind while assessing the

mindset of others, finding them wanting on all

but rare occasions. So vanishingly rare that one

person alone ever qualified for the open position

of soulmate and with that presence none others

might apply even for lesser appointments. Well

then little wonder is it, that you feel a palpable

coolness in a long-familiar voice, someone you

once fantasized would become an intimate, a

friend sharing like values. For in fact this woman

who married your son is as remote as you have

always been. She too inherited that gene of 

psychological seclusion, comfortable in her own

choices, one of which is maintaining distance

discretely, courteously but firmly from you.

 

 

Simply Noting

 

Is it social alchemy or might it quite

possibly be social anarchy, the situation

that otherwise obedient populations find

themselves in being ordered to self isolate

social distance, remain secluded in their

homes. Sleep at home, eat at home, work

from home, socialize from home, shop

from home. In short become a recluse in

a desperate bid to avoid becoming a corpse.

Or at the very best, inconvenienced by

illness, even made extremely ill by a nasty

virus that has bioscientists and epidemiologists

confused and uncertain themselves. Who to

trust? Evidently not WHO. Whom otherwise

to look to for direction? Depends, since a

frightened public is wary of all advice given

that those decision-makers are themselves

left to gamble on suppositions while others

predicate their orders on directly opposite

theories. One thing, however, seems clear.

Under normal conditions the streets that 

without fail are clear of walkers and the roads

that normally are thronged with vehicles

have undergone a reversal. Now, streets are

full of people pushing strollers, teens walking

starry-eyed together, children playing games

riding bicycles, runners, families strolling in

the fresh air, while the roads are absent cars.

 

 

One World

 

How strange is humanity. At this time of

universal fear of the global pandemic

laying medical science and populations

low in a panic of survival a new mantra

has arisen 'we are all in this together' in a

world where we have never as a race of

animals of high cerebral function been

together in any sense of the sentiment.

Where great masses of people clinging to

basic survival in endemic privation ruled

by vicious despots for whom power over the

paltry lives of millions uncaring whether

they live or die of disease and malnutrition

embrace a fundamentalist religion invariably

instructing them that life in the hereafter is

guaranteed to those of firm faith, a faith

to heed sacred scriptures debasing that of

others, condemning them to death. Places

where civil infrastructure is as absent as

justice and human rights but poverty enduring.

Ragingly offended by the presence of others

on the globe who live in plenty, demanding

their 'share' of global wealth. A pause in 

violent attacks against such enemies while

agitating for humanitarian aid during the crisis

and typically when normal life resumes so too

will the acts of rightful faith in rabid terrorism.

 

 

WHO, What Where When, How

 

A query not by necessity in that order, class

but you are well advised to pay attention.

The what remains uncertain beyond it being

a zoonotic leaping from animal to human.

Where it emerged is well known but one is

not to place blame on its point of origin lest

one give offence to a powerful political regime.

When it emerged alerting medical professionals

to the presence of a new, raging threat to global

health prompting them to inform their peers

their voices were stilled under threat. And

because we live in an interconnected world

of globalism where social movement and trade

tourism and business intersect to profit the

world economy, transmission of a little-understood

and often deadly pathogen was achieved. Into the

fray stepped the prestigious world body dedicated

to global health declaring the newly-revealed

threat non-communicable from human-to-human

and no reason to commit a racist act by closing

international borders to China. Now the global

community reels under a contagion refusing

control, asserting and reasserting itself. All

things considered whether the SARS-CoV-19

novel coronavirus emerged from a highly

secret experimental biological-threat laboratory

in Wuhan or from a notorious wet market can

be assumed to be irrelevant as the world implodes.

 

 

It's a Dog's Life

 

 

A cursory glance identifies them as twins

and they definitely are look-alikes though

brother and sister, litter-mates of a litter

of two though large for their breed and

it's a mystery how a toy sire and dam

mated to produce our little treasures. We

know them as others do not and though

they may be 'cute' they bedevil us by

their unerring propensity to frustrate

though there is no lack of intelligence

to offset the wilfulness. As male and

female they exemplify the very real

variances in the sexes, both physically

socially and gender-behavioured. She is

most decidedly feminine, serene and

confident, assertive and cunning. She is

also designed by nature shorter, plumper

far less sleek than her brother who is taller

muscular and given to displaying male

tendencies of aggression. Between them

she is the leader, he the follower. She will

eat anything, he will spurn what fails to

impress though his appetite is restored

when confronted with sticks and aged dog

leavings. All well and good but what now

I find disturbing is that I discover a direct

parallel between their temperaments as

gender-varied as they are, and those of the

two who care for them, he and I, both like

them having lived together for a dog's age

each of us taking on the appearance of the

other as though the litters that introduced us

to the world were little different than theirs.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Three Strikes

 

Come now, gather 'round as we count the

ways: homeless, drug-addicted and now

vulnerable to the dread coronavirus. Your

luck in life appears to have run fairly thin.

On the good news side there are many fine

people dedicated to seeing that you get on

with life. Not life as most know it of course

but your life, the life you have somehow or

other managed to choose out of a vast

multitude of directions of which you chose

this one. Not that it has been satisfying for

you to daily face the elements that housing

would solve, nor that the occasional high

might compensate for the drearily miserable

lows nor the opportunity never directly

sought to overdose. Much less that the frail

state of your health identifies you to the virus

as a credible destination. And then of course

there's the boredom factor. Look, I'm not sitting

comfortably here in judgement of you and

the misery life has handed you. Was it a bad

crowd you enjoyed that your mother warned

you against? That enemy of youth, peer pressure?

Disappointment with the trajectory of your

life when you expected much, much more?

Well, here you are, there are few crossroads

you might choose from since you've already

completed all the choices that have led to this.

Truly, honestly with feeling, I wish you well.

 

 

Deus Misereatur

 

Unwilling to accept responsibility

for his own actions, man's first

collective decision was to create

the Creator. In that Supreme Being

would rest the authority to

affect us all, that Spirit would

move us to behave as we do. We

gratefully give ourselves up to

His protection, His mercy; ourselves

giving no quarter, showing no mercy

to those who deny His existence.

Time has changed our perceptions

for once a whole pantheon of gods

rose to our needs, gave way to an

Aton, finally a Jehovah, heir of El.

Man is adaptable, and with his

changing imperatives he recognizes

the need to alter allegiance to

a new supremacy. In this era the

computer is the latest manifestation

of Divine Presence and the seat of

bureaucracy its temples.

Number after number is sacrificed to

appease the god whose fodder we are.

Recognizing safety in anonymity, we

embrace the liturgy of ciphers

and comforted, we exist blindly,

in a  uniform dance of submission.

 

 

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.