Enter Ye

 

Be Not Afraid

Step you forward, Stranger. Why look you so, upon me? Ah yes, curiosity is a strange, unquenchable thirst, is it not? Doubtless you've heard ... strange stories. Approach: Have no fear I will do you naught. There: Look you to your fullest .... Ah, you do not shrink back. Be at your ease, Stranger. I see many questions hovering on the lips of your curiosity, still unsatisfied. You have but to ask, it shall be my pleasure to deliver you of the pricklesome burden, this quest which has taken you to these far corners. Exactly ... seat yourself. Be comforted in my presence. ...And, you are named? Aenid? Know then, Aenid, you who have come so far, that I do herewith grant to you the freedom to ask what you will. such a journey as yours should have its reward.

I am She, Rheeta. There is none other of that name extant. The name is the Sign; she who bears it bears also the burden of the Sisterhood. Although my time will come as surely as it has done my predecessors, there will always be another and yet, another, Rheeta. This, that you see engraved, etched and lovingly portrayed upon my countenance is the past. Upon my visage is the past always present. The shades of carmine are the hues of carnage. That which was once visited upon this Sisterhood.

Your own face, lovely Aenid, wrinkles in dismay. I speak in riddles, you say. Such has always been the wont of the Motherhood of which I am the Superior. This archaic tongue is our sacred language. I shall, however, forsake it for the sake of your complete understanding. For it is meet that you do understand, you whose presence has a meaning and an urgency beyond your ken. Do you hark unto me, Aenid....

This is now, on the surface at any rate, a peaceful country. Did you see unrest or indication of any kind of material want on your way here? No, you would not. Did you stop at one of our ale-houses ringing the common? Ah, you did. Well, these are our meeting places; where the men of the Keep and the women of the Sisterhood mingle. In public those, our ale-houses, are the sole places which permit social interchange.

It is there, in these places which serve both our people, that the two solitudes meet, become personally aware of one another on more than an abstract level of the separation imposed upon us by sad history ... and where, if like minds meet, representations can be made toward future joinings. I still speak in riddles? Why is there that separation? And what do I mean by 'joinings'? Yes, of course, it is history, background which is needed to introduce you to our culture.

You come from Beyond, there where, as the Lore tells us, the cataclysms that shook this portion of the world had little effect. Your world, and your people, were thought millennia ago to have evolved later and separately from this place. And so, the level of your civilization was held back; you were thought by the ancients to be what they termed a 'stone-age culture'; that is, without advanced technical support-systems. These words, you must understand, are as a litany. I do know what they mean, but I cannot envisage exactly what advanced technology was, so long ago - other than what the Lore vaguely permits us to know. Some things - many things - are known only to the priestly caste. It is they who interpret the Lore and it is they who decide how much we should know and what to withhold from us.

Suffice it to say that when our segment of this world went into swift - and many thought - irremediable decline, yours was miraculously unscathed ... and so you continued in your own leisurely fashion to evolve. We have actually very little curiosity of the places which exist beyond our borders. We pay obeisance - as we must - to the priesthood for they are the Keepers of the Lore ... and we assist the Keep to pay tribute to the Overlords for they are the Keepers of the Peace. Both, the Lore and peace, are essential to our continued existence. We have been threatened in the past, on many occasions, by the attempted incursions of outside aliens.

The attempted invasions have been sparked both by a lust for our women whose beauty and industry is well known and for the plentiful gems which the men of the Keep mine and use as barter and Tribute. These gems cannot be found elsewhere. It has been said variously that these lands were once rained upon by a burst of heavenly bodies colliding, showering our mountains and plains with the bounty which has since named this place Feldspar ... and it has also been rumoured that the gems occurred through some strange alchemy of destruction brought about by the awesome weaponry which once great powers used in their ways, one against the another.

It is true that we are the remnants of a once-powerful and proud nation. The Lore tells us that great multitudes lived in these lands once; their numbers were legion and they had evolved a way of living that was much unlike ours. In many ways it is even now difficult for us to live together in harmony. So that I can almost imagine how difficult it must have been for so many people as were reputed to have lived then, to agree with one another and respect each other.

And as the Lore would have it, there came a time when agreement and respect evaporated and in their place reigned fear and hatred and an unreasoning wish for revenge - for what, I cannot say. And thus was unleashed a horror that rid the earth of its inhabitants. Yes, I know it had little effect in your places, but ours were affected. Even now, in the marshes beyond the forests fencing in this land no one wishes to go. A strange phosphorescence glimmers over the waters; they assume strange shapes and we hear eerie sounds as of the weeping of multitudes.

That is the history, such as it is. What we discovered also is that the men and women could not live happily together. For some reason, after the coming-together again of those who survived, there was much bitterness. The men accused the women of goading them to war and the women accused the men of deserting them for the glories of war. This, at any rate, is what the Lore tells us.

Over a period of time, a rift ensued and a sharp division of labours came about and with it, a drifting apart of men and women. So that, eventually, we became as you see us now ... the central place and the outlying settlements. The central place is the Keep, inhabited by the Thane and his men. The settlements consist of Sisterhood villages. Over the fields are the mountains and plains which yield our famed gems. The mining and other aligned industry is the men's province. Spinning, weaving, animal husbandry and farming belong to the women. As does the care of the creches, the instruction-houses. Indeed, that separation of duties, the Lore informs, is no innovation; it has been so, from time immemorial - we have only taken it a step further with our imposition of the physical separation of male and female.

We have our problems but for the most part, the arrangement is a congenial one.

We have a Council of Elders in our Sisterhood, commonly termed the Motherhood. These are comprised of women who have seen much and their counsel has stood us well in times of need. I am the titular head of the Motherhood. I stand alone, however, in never having mothered children. I am the recognized Mother of all, nonetheless. In my place, when my time comes, will be another, groomed from childhood to take her part in our history. We are one, the succession of Rheetas and as such, faceless.  This is the reason why that portion of the Lore which tells of man's brutality to women which comes about through close daily living together, is etched on my face in this vermilion dye.

It was done, that scarring, when I was past childhood and I remember nothing of the ritual. I did not go through childhood with this face, but wore a common and quite unremarkable countenance so that I could mingle with the other children and not be kept apart. In this way could I know my people and share their thoughts. Were I to have been known as one set apart, those thoughts and the freedom which comes from consorting with one's peers, would have been withheld from me.

It was with the ascension of my role, my place as Mother Superior, that that other face was removed and my identity revealed. All my predecessors, as I myself will be, were ceremoniously plowed back into the earth from whence they came; to enrich the soil and ensure the bounty of future harvests. It is our way, one which has a long and honourable tradition.

We seek to please that Ultimate Superior, whom we all faithfully serve.

 

 

Under Siege

Hell's gatekeeper, it seems, has become lax

no longer guarding the sacred precincts of the

damned oblivious to the fugitive hosts of hellfire 

abandoning their posts despite that so many have 

descended whose souls require constant flagellation 

in recognition of their sins of commission against 

fellow humans. Aides de feu now roam upper Earth's 

forests bringing with them fire and brimstone and 

inhumane heat the devil himself would happily lave 

within. Rumour has it that an ungodly pact was reached 

between heaven and hell not to interfere with one another's 

gifts to humanity. Indubitable gifts they are; sun and rain  

from above, fire from below, essential to existence

the excess of which equates to nature's dysfunctional

uneven distribution over her creation; abnormal heat

domes of punishing depths sparking drought and

wildfires of perishing dimensions while elsewhere

hurricanes usher copious rains flushing mountain

sides into valleys below while rivers and lakes swell

overrun their floodplains drowning humanity's efforts

at taming nature's geological boundaries into disaster.

 

 

Pray, Then Prey

It is said of the Almighty that He is a jealous

god, angered that humanity would have the

insolent temerity to overlook His omnipotent

omnipresence as the creator of all that exists

to find faith elsewhere. For, as it is said, the god

of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael found favour in

these three progenitors of religious humanity

whose numbers encompass the globe while

zealously keeping the faith. Even as the pious

descendants of Isaac quibble over the deeper

meaning inherent in the sacred scriptures

those of Ishmael take serious note of the basics

of their commandments given them by this

jealous god to go forth to induct those who defy

obeisance to Allah either unto Islam or death.

And so was the Party of God created to do His

ineffable bidding for it remains an obligation

of the faith to bring those of the nations of war

into the serene nation of peace that is Islam.

And so set they forth to convince their enemies

of a severely shortened lifespan should they

defy the injunction to surrender to Islam. Threats

made all the more manifest by the stockpiling

of lethal weaponry among the people of peace

who now and again wage deadly conquest in

the name of the original warrior of god in

whose own name, Mohammad, his followers

are inspired. As fate decrees there are sundry

occasions when preparations for combat go

awry when munitions deploy spontaneously

all careful, covert preparations rent asunder.

This too, the work of the great unseen god.

For All I Know

For all I know, the spirit of my garden
a gentle and accommodating muse
faithful to the ardent fulfillment of my
gardener's wishes during the days of bloom
may feel betrayed and neglected left 
to fend for herself as winter approaches
for even hearts of stone may be vulnerable
to winter's mercilessly icy grip and her
abandonment within the garden put to
rest may elicit resentment for all I know.
She now wears a white mantle of snow
a diadem to match, with snowy boots
ill-fitting her loose Grecian garment of
timeless grace. Beside her, not quite
a companion but in close proximity
sits her grimacing and leering adversary
the gargoyle whose function it is to
defend the interior of the house, and
whose heart is obliviously immune to
the cold, for his is a heart not only of
stone, but black as Hades itself while hers 
radiates the goodness of Elysian Fields.

 

Aspire!

Though we have it on impeccable
authority, I have my doubts that the
Garden of Eden was such a marvellous
place of fecund order and beauty beyond
belief. I don't believe it to have been other
than the template for gardens to follow.
And the reason for that is simple; Eden
was a place of secret mischief, where
the forces of devilish misdeeds were
hard at work transforming it into a
state of rebellion. How else explain that
Eve was dissatisfied with the life of ease
and plenty she shared with Adam there?
I can see its echoes in my own tiny
garden where all attempts to impose
order fail. Beauty there is, as though by
default, since nature designs and permits
it to flaunt itself with or without my puny
ministrations. But tidiness and regimentation?
Not very likely, since the plants lovingly
tended by the gardener give short shrift
to obedience. They perform as they will
and not as I will them to. They cluster
and they push others aside, they demand
admiration and haughtily deign to flower
and to wane and return another year
but on their own terms, certainly not
mine. The garden represents a natural
conspiracy whose inhabitants appear to
take great pleasure in frustrating anyone
foolish enough to believe that as a gardener
hard work, design and aspirations to
produce a superb work of living art is
attainable. But in the search of perfection
it is always the garden that has the last 
word; the word that Eve used her wiles
to persuade Adam to take that fateful
bite. The rest is, as they say, commentary.

Season of Mourning

Season of Mourning

It is an unspoken covenant between
grandmother and granddaughter, the
daily after-school call, born no doubt of
their intimate history when in the first
decade of her young life it was grandma's
arms that enveloped her after school.
Distance has made the invisible silken
strand of connection - tender yet strong
as a spider's skein - no less compelling.

Watcha doing? elicits the identical
quotidian refrain: not much. But it is
intensely cold, windy, damp and so did
you wear your winter boots and jacket?
represents another facet of the formula
of this relationship. Nope, the laconic,
expected response. And the vital news of
the post-school snack emerges: a pomegranate.

That mysterious Eastern fruit, its amazing
structured, celled interior surfeit with
faceted ruby jewels like those in a treasure
chest discovered in the fabled caves of
Ali Baba. These glistening sweet jewels to
be consumed, not worn in brilliant splendour,
arrayed upon the white, swan-like necks of
beautiful Harem girls. Careful you don't
squirt your eye, grandmother urges.

Damn! granddaughter informs, just squirted
my eye. Language, chides grandmother.
Then in the silence asks do you know the
Greek legend of the pomegranate? Have you
met Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and
her daughter Persephone? Do you know where
the seasons come from? Have you studied
Greek mythology in your school curricula?

To the last query: yes, some, in drama class.
To the previous: no clue, as they claim in
teen vernacular. But you can ask about
vampires, we know about them, grandma.

Grandma sets about enlightening her child
in the delights of tragedy and mystery, grandeur
and petulance, power, esteem and comedy, all
residing in the arcane minutiae of a folk
panoply of gods, their overweening pride,
bumptiously covert antics, vain jealousies and
curiously oppressive sexual adventures.

How an abduction of a beloved daughter
led to a grieving mother and a deadly chilled
season of mourning, when no flowers bloomed,
no crops grew, dark wailing veils hung from
trees and the brows of mothers alike, and all
life was suspended in unappeasable grief. The
redemption of compassion that would bring
spring back to the world, and the single seed
of a pomegranate that consigned a daughter to
dark Hades and a coldly possessive yet loved
husband to satisfy both life and death.

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 objets d'art.

                   and
love is played at feelingly,
coequals plucking sole eyes
doing the rounds
in comradely fashion
so all can see through
future's mists.

                       There
mountains blossom
bright thorn flowers;
earth opens welcome
chasms for escape from
terrifying sameness.

In that country
trespassers are welcomed
in boiling cauldrons
spitting primal brew
                    and
heat brings saline dew
to unsuspecting brows.

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 goodbyes ...

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 backs, wearily slit
open envelopes to read get-well cards.
Wondered if this was God's punishment
for hanging murderers. Sent off the
last cheques to his grieving sons and
                            daughters.

The Last of Her Line

The last of her line of warrior queens
Penthesilea spurred the flagging Trojans
to combat with brave words and Priam had
faith until the oracle showed him her
limp form on a funeral pyre.

But the fleeting glory of the Amazon
inspired the armies of Troy, dispirited
by nine years of encirclement, by Hector's
death and they followed her wild mare to

the battlefield and fought as they never
had before, lancing and axing the Greeks,
driving them back to the beached ships
with newfound fury, their wild warcries

crowning the seagulls' wails. Blood
gored the plains of Ilium and heads rolled
like stones on the breach of Achaean
      offence
until Achilles, still mourning Patroclus

joined the battle to confront the warrior
woman. The air thundered with battle
the cries of the dying, the speared, the
gutted. Facing each other, the half god

the Amazon each scented victory. Ah,
Penthesilea's spear glanced off dread
Achilles' shield, his greave and in his
turn Chiron's pupil pierced the warrior

woman through her breast, penetrating
the horse to stick her body like meat
upon a spit. Plucking the helm from her
head, Achilles looked with rage on the

dead beauty of the woman whose courage
matched his and he lusted helplessly
for those slack limbs to entwine his
that dead mouth to catch his, that gone

breath to sweeten his life. There is
no victory in conquering
                  there is no glory!
he cried in anguish and tried to die.

Life's Casual Rehearsal

Is it possible that
life, as we think
we know it is merely a
casual figment of 
some arcane source,
perhaps the creative
imagination of some
unknowable being
conducting an 
experiment in possibilities
and potentials, curious
to witness the actions
and reactions of
organisms of its design
feeling themselves
on their own voyages
of discovery while
entertaining their maker,
concluding this to be
an unfortunate failed
enterprise unsuitable for
a long-range project
of which it was to
represent a rehearsal.
Bored indifference
with an imperfect
experiment the result,
the creatures left
by their creator
to get on with
their paltry existence
as well they might.
Their throwaway planet
dismissively tossed
into the yawning
endless cavity of space
in a reckless universe.

Deo Gracias

It is a truly splendid object, one whose 
glorious presence, perched upon my
table, offers pleasured awe.  It is, in fact,
a book, a treasury of writing offering 
complementary facsimile plates of 
Medieval art.  There appear on its
smooth, silky, gilded pages poetry
by that famous wordsmith, Anonymous.
But others also, whose names are
familiar, like Malory, Chaucer, Boccaccio.
They have been illustriously paired with
exquisite art of the period; Books of
Hours, virginal Madonnas, glowing
miniatures recalling Raphael, Bosch, 
van Eyck, van de Weyden, Bruegel the 
Elder.  Sumptuous and utterly sublime, 
this treasury is mine to wonder at the 
genius of human art and invention, an 
wonderfully inspired compendium taking 
its inspiration from legend interpreted by 
Lucas Cranach with Anonymous expressing 
deep gratitude for humankind's blessed
fortunes finding wisdom, speech, invention, 
learning and alas, base emotions as well: 
Adam lay y-bounden in a bond, 
Four thousand winters thought he not too long. 
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took, 
As learned men find written in their Book.  
Had not the apple taken been, 
Never would our Lady have been Heaven's Queen. 
Blessed be the time the apple taken was, 
Therefore we may sing, 'Deo gracias'.

The Ancient Tapestry of Light

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

He sat on the yellow soil comprised of sand and clay, legs folded under his torso, hands held in an imploring gesture before the deliberately heedless throng. His white dishdashah was no more stained than that of most, and his keffiye neatly arranged on his head; his grey beard as indicative of age, as their own grizzled faces. His eyes, they were different. They were not, in fact quite there. They were rheumy, running hollows, to which bottle flies were attracted, distracting him from attracting the attention of those who might give alms.

They turned away from him, despite the Q'uranic injunction to charity, for his appearance was repulsive and it shamed them also, that there were amongst them some whose need was clearly greater than theirs. And theirs was great enough.

He, caring little for their disgust, entreated them to pity and to do the will of Allah in recognizing his need. He shifted his position on the ground, vainly attempting to find comfort, and his visage took on the savage look of misery incarnate, his shapeless lips no longer forming the grimace he thought represented a smile.

Carrion-seeking birds, vultures with their red-ringed heads and long wrinkled necks thrust forward, crested the sizzling sky. Dust was everywhere, circulating in the lower atmosphere, clogging peoples' throats and nostrils, and those of their livestock. It settled, mud-yellow, on everything; the lintels of their homes, roofs, worn carpeting placed over olive, oil and water jugs. Building interiors were neatly inlaid with dust, particles of the cosmos, infinitesimally minute atoms representing everything and nothing.

Dust stifled the air of the marketplace, the plaintive voices of the women, heads carefully covered in deference to the Q'uran's injunction to female modesty, complaining about the steadily rising prices of mutton, fowl, dates, figs and grain. Risen too steeply for their liking, for their ability to pay. Mothers reached down to slap small hands that crept to the top of stalls hoping to snatch a nutmeat. Infants slung across their mothers' chests, held by stout linens, bawled in a disorder of animal and human sounds.

A hawk streaked the sky over a copse of date palms, shrilling. Wispy grey clouds, barely seen against the particulate matter crowding the canopy of the sky reflected the tattered grey of once-white garments. Glancing toward the west, squinting eyes could make out a sun-dog, portending some atmospheric change, perhaps another khamsin, perhaps a clearing of the sky to something resembling blue, inviting the overhead sun to bake the ground and burn bare feet.

In the near distance rose a curvaceously slender minaret, needling God's overheated sky. Cicadas buzzed the atmosphere. The sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer rang out and resounded in the still, torrid atmosphere. The hum of the crowd became muted, faded, as all turned; the women removing themselves from male proximity, to prostrate themselves facing Mecca.

The lyrical melody of a prayer as familiar as one's beloved's face piously rose to the heavens, toward Allah's patiently demanding hearing and benign approval, as his people surrendered for the third time that day to daily prayers.

In the courtyard of the Khedive's palace, roses, peonies, lilies, Persian cornflowers, delphiniums, safflower and red poppies thrived in vivid array and brilliant colour, sending their fragrance throughout the generously measured space. Where also grew olive trees, willows, pomegranate and bitterweed. Also acacia, wild celery, dill, henna and mint.

The cooling, tinkling sound of a water fountain fetched the senses to swooning, as the water fell gracefully back into the shaped pond wherein swam golden- and silver-hued fish among the blue water lilies and papyrus plants. A small, wrinkled man busied himself snipping spent flowers, stopping now and again to inhale, when a broad smile would overtake his toothless mouth.

Not a hint of cooling breeze to be felt anywhere. Not in the souk, nor along the dusty alleys, or in the palace courtyard. Within the seraglio, sensuous, full-bodied women with kohl-described, smouldering eyes spread their languid limbs on colourful divans. Within this area could be heard the melodic whispering of the fountain as it circulated in the dry air.

A grossly overweight Eunuch, his taut skin glistening with sweat, fanned himself desultorily, in a vain effort to find relief from the sweltering, gasping heat. He sat in the doorway, eyes vacant, dreaming of another place, where his ancestors had dwelt and of which he had heard whispered longings from his parents before he had been whisked mysteriously away in the night as a child, to this place.

The white, diaphanous fabric of the women's garments served to accentuate their voluptuous flesh, lovingly scented with aloe. Their pale skins glistened too, in those places which remained uncovered, but they were not dreadfully overheated, for large feathered fans moved the air about them, handled with ease by cherubic-looking little black boys, unclad but for a loincloth.

The women's soft voices resounded in gentle probing questions; one of the other, in solicitous regard, humming through the sumptuously appointed chamber within which they spent their days. One inhaled a water pipe. Another plucked the strings of an oud, a second held a tambourine.

The wing holding their many children was not far away and they might visit at will, but their duties lay here, looking beautiful, rested, inviting. Entertaining themselves. Engaging in the kind of gossip women thrive upon; their own inimitable, useful and socially binding transference of news. Besides which, they were all to one another, sisters, mothers, companions in bondage.

Their latest intrigue was the introduction of another, younger woman. A girl, really, but more than adequately nubile. Her introduction awaited verification of her intact hymen. They knew little of her, but that she came from afar, and was not of their tribes , nor a familiar of the clans. She would need to be comforted, they knew. Abbad Pasha did not tolerate discord in his harem.

A slave, young and graceful, carried a tray of refreshments. Dates, and grapes, and watered wine and pomegranate juice. Nectarines, kumquats, nuts and sesame paste. The fruit was welcome, and the young man was as well, for young as he yet was, he was beautiful, too. The women rose to surround him and tease him, and he blushed as their hands ran softly over his arms and his legs.

At the souk, a camel herder cursed as his lead camel ventured too close to the food-bearing stalls, and hit the beast repeatedly on its back, its snout, kicked it viciously to encourage it to back away and begin anew. Its outraged groans elicited no sympathy. Stalls laden with nuts, grains, dried fish and olives stood out in the main traffic area where most people shopped. Linens and rancid hides were to be had there.

Closer to the protective walls of the palace stood small semi-enclosed shops with copper objects, silver jewellery, linen garments and woven rugs. Slippers, leatherwork redolent of curing camel urine, along with tablahs, and dumbeks, and mizmars could be had there, as well. Not for most, but there for those whose wherewithal was equal to the prices of these esteemed objects. The occasional palanquin moved through the crowd in the torpid heat.

The beggar half-heartedly swatted the flies that plagued his existence, before finally realizing dusk was falling and he had no further hope of charity this accursed day. He awaited the appearance of his eldest son, upon whom he would lean as they hobboled back to their hovel.
He steeled himself to accept the burden of bringing nothing of value back with him.

He longed, in his fevered mind, for the impossible; a return to the time when his wife's adolescent face beamed whenever she saw his approach, her esteemed uncle. His eyes had been capable of feasting hungrily on her youth, grace and beauty. Now what greeted him was her silent reproach, and the plaintive mewling of their malnourished children.

His tormented spirit shrieked in haunted agony that would give him no peace. First, light left his eyes, leaving him in a dark universe of bitter disaffection and abandonment. Then, the light of belief had abandoned him. He had submerged himself in the poison of despondency, apostasy, denied the comfort of eternal Paradise.

Woe betide him.

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth;
the likeness of His light is as a niche
wherein is a lamp
(the lamp is a glass,
the glass as it were a glittering star)
kindled from a Blessed Tree,
an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West
whose oil wellnigh would shine, even if no fire touched it:
Light upon Light
(God guides to His light whom He will)

Vanishing Species

The little ones - they were there in various sizes and attitudes - tumbled and frolicked, shrieking with unbridled joy, as they tossed themselves into the billowing crystalline formations that had transformed their green-hued landscape overnight. The alteration in temperature that accompanied this transformation appeared not to trouble them at all.

In their abandonment to the pleasures of losing themselves within the undulating hills of soft, comforting crystals, they paid no mind to the cooling ambiance. They were enraptured at the light nuances, at the sudden, twinkling change from white to colour, as they dove, and swam through the tender thickness of the crystals. The bright, light filaments of their hair flung about their heads echoed the colours of the crystals.

Just as their own skin began to turn shades of pale colour, thickening as it changed, so too did the crystals, as though they were cleverly mimicking them, and they screamed aloud with ecstasy at the very thought that they and their antics were capable of altering that in which they sought out such rapture.

Unlike the changes that occurred in those lively bodies and limbs of flailing little ones, however, it was simply the colour, reflecting their own, that the crystals adopted. The light, flaky crystalline presence did not alter, become coarse, or thicken, as did the skin of the little ones.

And, as their skin thickened and coloured from pale to bright to dark in contact with the cold, the children stood in mock horror, pointing at one another, claiming to have been altered from the delicate woodland creatures that they had been, to the robust, and feared plains creatures they so assiduously avoided - by the sage advice of the wizened, bearded elders whose experience was their history, just as their environment was their living laboratory of knowledge gained year upon year.

Memory was such that they could recall previous years of just such transformations, but details escaped them, and now, directly confronting the reality, it was as though each year’s experience was fresh, unanticipated, beautiful well beyond recall, and invigorating to their very souls. For souls they certainly were possessed of. Quite lovely souls, in fact, which made themselves available on request at times of uncertainty, when comfort was sought and sturdily given.

There were many of these small creatures sporting within the landscape. Some small groups could hardly be distinguished one from the other, for each within that group precisely resembled one the other. And in other, larger groups there were even smaller groups with distinct resemblance one to the other. Readily explicated when one became aware of the wonderful attributes nature had endowed these creatures with.

Their abodes were blended into their wooded landscape, exceedingly well disguised but readily distinguished by those who had familiarity with them. The interiors, however, were quite amazing in the quality of the luxury afforded the inhabitants. Deep, glorious colours abounded, with plush appointments for the comfort of those who lived there; the small among the middling among the large and finally the elderly. Generations lived together in harmony within their dwellings, and dwellings there were many.

Nature had endowed these creatures with qualities of social grace and physical beauty, genders distinguished by the exquisite delicacy of the females, the sturdy physicality of the males, though there were many overlapping character traits where personalities often reflected similar views acculturated by the species’ proclivity toward quiet reflection and grave attention to an unspoken but revered social contract forbidding strife.

Within that framework there were vast differences both physical and attitudinally between the inhabitants of the settlement of that forest blessed with an abundance of other wildlife kindly regarded, and plant life affording their landscaping abilities to the greater appreciation of all those sensate creatures.

Now, there was a perfectly logical reason why - although there could be a vast physical difference in the facial and bodily features of these creatures - there would appear to be groups of the little ones who so remarkably resembled one another. Within their homes, sumptuously laid out with all manner of creature comforts, there also existed in each a peculiar slate-like apparatus which, despite the greyness of its exterior was still capable of perfectly reflecting the visage of one who stood before it.

And that one, if it be little, could invite the reflection to step outside the confines of the apparatus, and join it. Whereupon the like reflection would stand beside the original. This could be repeated many times. Each of the evoked reflections, however appearing precisely similar to the original would manifest various character differences; moody, exuberant, reflective, sad, even combative.

After a period between the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun, the original would select which of its reflections it would like to remain companionably with it, throughout the course of the following day; the remainder were absorbed back into the slate apparatus. This process of creation, temporary though it was, could be evoked only by the little of the species; the middling had had their opportunity, and the large no longer had the capacity with which they had been earlier endowed.

The more frequently the little ones chose a particular character trait to accompany them and play with them and share the day’s various activities with them, the closer the original little one began to resemble its choices, imbuing its character more decidedly with the chosen traits, be it humour, optimism, wisdom, languor, assertiveness or compassion, for example.

As the little ones evolved over the years, almost imperceptibly forming their character traits, they were modestly influenced by a growing awareness of the middling ones. It was the middling ones who were identified by a gradual subduing of the little ones’ enthusiasm for everything about them, whose collective sense of adventure, creative fun and challenge of their environment enlivened the days of the large ones who contemplated their antics so fondly. And who knew, from learned experience, to maintain a distance between themselves and the middle ones, urging the little ones to do likewise.

For the middling ones, struggling with the completion of their identities as unique beings, having absorbed those elements from their slate-shadows over the course of many years, were a rather surly lot. Uncertain of their choices, yet unwilling to contemplate the possibility of shedding some, embracing others, utterly confused by their inexorable transition from little to middling, and fearing the inevitability of becoming large. A prospect that left them embittered at the potential of stifling stolidity in obeisance to custom, their little years of freedom and discovery and happy unmindfulness long left behind.

They resented their isolation within the community. For they no longer sought the company of others like them; that was left behind when they were no longer little, genial of temperament and accustomed to moving about in groups of light-headed delirium with love of life. Their short tempers and obvious resentment earned them another type of isolation, where the elders looked gravely upon them, doubting the final evolution, at the same time regarding the little ones with fond endearments, encouraging them to delightful excess.

The middling ones were confused, upset and worried that they no longer felt wonder at all that surrounded them. There were no more mysteries whose source should be sought and revealed, for they had absorbed what they felt were all the dreary aspects of their future, based on what they observed of the large among them.

They brooded and they suffered, and they formed small cliques to gather where none other could detect their presence, and they plotted to become other, not to meld into the creatures, stolid and maturely plodding that was theirs to become.

Even they, however, played music, for music elevated all their souls, the rhapsody of sound that brought to mind everything that nature, their great benefactor and sometimes-antagonist brought to their lives. Stiff, hollow grasses were plucked from the earth and these they fashioned into pipes and into flutes and the thin, reedy sound of the music they played, passed down by venerated absorption from one generation to the next, drifted wraithlike and thrilling to all ears that cupped and loved those sounds.

The music played by the middling ones was ever sorrowful, full of regret for something they were unable to identify. The little ones’ music was fresh, lilting, bordering on the chaotic, but always seeming to find the melody that expressed their zest for adventure, fun and the thrusts and parries of exploration in their world of the forest. The music of the large was stoic yet placid, hauntingly beautiful, while the elders’ music was melancholy with regret for time that passed them by.

Their sensual appreciation for all the wealth of nature that surrounded them, magnitudes of vegetation that offered berries, edible roots, tree-fruits and grasses to be pounded into grains and nuts and seeds, nectar, honey that sustained them through storage in the dark months spoke of their place in the centre of this world unseen by creatures who had no business in their realm.

In the growing seasons they habitually and ostentatiously plucked floral offerings to decorate their homes. They constructed wreaths and garlands whose fragrance followed where they went, looped fantastically over their bodies, the aura of sweet and spice permeating their surroundings, wafting on the air wherever they went. This was their life. Unique creatures of creation itself.

They were so utterly involved with and among themselves, took such great delight in their presence in this cradle of their existence, they were ill-prepared for the sudden, unexpected swarming by the prairie creatures so like, yet so unlike themselves.

The comforts in which nature indulged them, their harmonious and egalitarian society, their presence in that wooded area that afforded them such grace of being had long been envied by those others. Others whose presence they were acutely aware of, but which were so seldom observed, heard or considered as an imminent, and dire threat that when that dark day of oncoming spring when the creeks thawed and the ground gave up its winter covering bringing thoughts of a fresh new growing season, also brought hordes of evil-smelling, yowling and leaping, armed and violent creatures intent on annihilating them, they were in no position to defend themselves.

Alas, all the structures that were built decayed, the tiny meadows within the forest that had been tilled became overgrown, and memory of the creatures that had been, faded. When next the bright white crystals of snow fell upon the forest the birds and the small furred creatures that lived there huddled for warmth and waited for spring. But the sounds and sights of excited, happy little ones no longer rang on the air with their boundless enthusiasm for life.

Direly Disrupted, Disturbed, Damned

A malfunctioning house, in fact. This causes the head of the household great pain. He has always demonstrated great patience with his children, urging them to become all that they could possibly be. To ingrain in them the knowledge that they were gifted with free will, and that in recognition of this gift they had a responsibility to exercise their decision-making with intelligence and sensitivity. Basically, toward others.

This, they have not done. And the paterfamilias grieves. Heaven knows, he has tried. He has done his utmost to teach his children. His is a firm, even-handedly instructive method. He does, mind, demand respect, both for himself and his uncompromising values. There is right and there is, most decidedly, wrong, and the choice between the two cannot be compromised. He demands justice.

The father stands in judgement of his children, he exhorts them to conform, willingly, eagerly, to his edicts and commands. This is the responsibility of a father, to guide offspring reflecting the best that can possibly be, always aspiring to reach a pinnacle of highly developed sensibilities and respectful of the civil code their father has taught them.

Their father is also a strict disciplinarian. Although quite capable of compassion and loving kindness. So he says. When the occasion demands. The occasion, unfortunately, is too frequently demanding of discipline, to bring his errant children back to the path of the righteous way their father expects of them to tread with humility.

How can he be kind and loving when they insult his expectations for them? He mourns his children's growing propensity to bitterness between one another. Their constant fault-finding with one another. Most of all, it grieves him to see that child that was most gifted with original revelation of their father's divine presence, scorned and victimized and tormented by his brothers.

An unpleasing sight to a father wishful that his progeny behave as he would wish them to. All the more so that he has spent so much eternal time patiently attempting to teach them the way. They pretend to listen, then find innumerable reasons why that way is not amenable to their aspirations. Forgetting who it is that gave them life and opportunity.

Pity the father. His investment in humane instruction has gone awry.

Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

Sistine Chapel (Italian: Cappella Sistina) is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic

So, God?

My best friend's family is religious. They go to church regularly, every Sunday. I've gone along with them, twice. My mother doesn't believe in religion. She doesn't think there's a God. I'm asking you directly. Where are you? What do you do, exactly? It's like what my mother does for a living, she's a professional, she does project management and she has other skills, like she can do architectural drawings, and she does stuff like interior design. I mean I know she does that stuff, but I don't know what it is. Know what I mean?

My girlfriend's thirteenth birthday was a month before mine. I've been thirteen for a full month, almost. I'm not sure she believes in God - that's you - either. We don't talk about it, really. We get along really well together. I like being with her, and I know she likes being with me, too. She used to bug to come over all the time, and that was fine with me. I wasn't all that excited about going over to her house. Besides, I'm the one that has a trampoline; she has cattle, and you can't play with cows.

You may have guessed we live in the country. It can get pretty boring in summer. But know what? I'd rather have the summer holidays than be in school. I'm pretty good at school work, and get good marks, but being bored at home is better than being bored at school. There's a lot of kids that've gone through school with me I'd just as soon not see again - at least for a while. Until school starts up again, and I go into grade eight.

I've always wondered is there a powerful mighty guy. Is there really someone high above us in the sky watching our every move? That makes me kind of nervous. I don't want anyone watching everything I do. There are some things, actually lots of things I'd like to keep private. Anyway, if you do exist, God, are you why I'm here? Are you the one who takes people we love away with you, or is that fate?

I know that people who believe in your existence go to church because they want to prove to you that they have faith in your existence. That's kind of silly, isn't it? They pray there, as a way to tell you that they trust you and believe that if they do what you say, things will turn out all right. So, if someone does something bad, are you the one who decides what to do with them, or is it the police and the criminal justice system?

Don't we control ourselves, our behaviour, our actions? All right, if you exist, and I'm not right to question that, how about Mother Nature? How do you explain that nature is the one that makes things grow, including the food we eat, and is responsible also for our existence as human beings? Should nature not contest you? Is nature answerable to you? Did you create nature too?

There's no real way of knowing, is there? If there is a way of proving that you're real, that you exist somewhere, somehow, I'd sure like to know what it is. Nature isn't fake, we can see what it - or she does, we watch the seasons change, we see things grow, we eat the food that growing things provide for us. Who are we supposed to be grateful to, you, or nature? I know that people appreciate nature and worship you.

But no one can give me the answers I'm looking for. No one wants to, they say you've just got to take some things on trust. So why should anyone trust you, God? People kill one another and fight over you. If you're real why don't you put a stop to that? Why don't you stop the fighting, the wars, the children dying in poverty, the people starving? Aren't you supposed to be responsible, too?

It's not peoples' fault they can't live the way they want to. Healthy and wealthy. Why, if you're so fair and just and kindly, do you allow some people to have money and others not? Why are really nice people dying when they're young from some horrible disease, and the nasty people who don't care about anyone but themselves able to live long and healthy lives? Not my idea of fairness or justice.

Is it yours, God? Is there some kind of master plan I'm not smart enough to think of, maybe? You look down on all these pathetic, arguing, miserable people and just let things happen. Because you know we'll figure it all out some day? You know, like tough love? Is that it, God? You love the humans you created so much and respect their intelligence so much that you're prepared to allow them to make dreadful mistakes?

On their way to eventually becoming as smart as you? Will you be there, waiting to greet those people who believe in you, and who say they do all the good things you say they're supposed to, in the afterlife? Come to think of it, what's this stuff about an afterlife? Do we really have more than one life to live? Some kids laugh that off, and say life isn't a practise session. I think they're right, and they're smarter than me too.

So, God, what have you got to say for yourself? I don't mean to be rude. Just asking.

Enter Ye

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

Be Not Afraid

Step you forward, Stranger. Why look you so, upon me? Ah yes, curiosity is a strange, unquenchable thirst, is it not? Doubtless you've heard ... strange stories. Approach: Have no fear I will do you naught. There: Look you to your fullest .... Ah, you do not shrink back. Be at your ease, Stranger. I see many questions hovering on the lips of your curiosity, still unsatisfied. You have but to ask, it shall be my pleasure to deliver you of the pricklesome burden, this quest which has taken you to these far corners. Exactly ... seat yourself. Be comforted in my presence. ...And, you are named? Aenid? Know then, Aenid, you who have come so far, that I do herewith grant to you the freedom to ask what you will. such a journey as yours should have its reward.

I am She, Rheeta. There is none other of that name extant. The name is the Sign; she who bears it bears also the burden of the Sisterhood. Although my time will come as surely as it has done my predecessors, there will always be another and yet, another, Rheeta. This, that you see engraved, etched and lovingly portrayed upon my countenance is the past. Upon my visage is the past always present. The shades of carmine are the hues of carnage. That which was once visited upon this Sisterhood.

Your own face, lovely Aenid, wrinkles in dismay. I speak in riddles, you say. Such has always been the wont of the Motherhood of which I am the Superior. This archaic tongue is our sacred language. I shall, however, forsake it for the sake of your complete understanding. For it is meet that you do understand, you whose presence has a meaning and an urgency beyond your ken. Do you hark unto me, Aenid....

This is now, on the surface at any rate, a peaceful country. Did you see unrest or indication of any kind of material want on your way here? No, you would not. Did you stop at one of our ale-houses ringing the common? Ah, you did. Well, these are our meeting places; where the men of the Keep and the women of the Sisterhood mingle. In public those, our ale-houses, are the sole places which permit social interchange.

It is there, in these places which serve both our people, that the two solitudes meet, become personally aware of one another on more than an abstract level of the separation imposed upon us by sad history ... and where, if like minds meet, representations can be made toward future joinings. I still speak in riddles? Why is there that separation? And what do I mean by 'joinings'? Yes, of course, it is history, background which is needed to introduce you to our culture.

You come from Beyond, there where, as the Lore tells us, the cataclysms that shook this portion of the world had little effect. Your world, and your people, were thought millennia ago to have evolved later and separately from this place. And so, the level of your civilization was held back; you were thought by the ancients to be what they termed a 'stone-age culture'; that is, without advanced technical support-systems. These words, you must understand, are as a litany. I do know what they mean, but I cannot envisage exactly what advanced technology was, so long ago - other than what the Lore vaguely permits us to know. Some things - many things - are known only to the priestly caste. It is they who interpret the Lore and it is they who decide how much we should know and what to withhold from us.

Suffice it to say that when our segment of this world went into swift - and many thought - irremediable decline, yours was miraculously unscathed ... and so you continued in your own leisurely fashion to evolve. We have actually very little curiosity of the places which exist beyond our borders. We pay obeisance - as we must - to the priesthood for they are the Keepers of the Lore ... and we assist the Keep to pay tribute to the Overlords for they are the Keepers of the Peace. Both, the Lore and peace, are essential to our continued existence. We have been threatened in the past, on many occasions, by the attempted incursions of outside aliens.

The attempted invasions have been sparked both by a lust for our women whose beauty and industry is well known and for the plentiful gems which the men of the Keep mine and use as barter and Tribute. These gems cannot be found elsewhere. It has been said variously that these lands were once rained upon by a burst of heavenly bodies colliding, showering our mountains and plains with the bounty which has since named this place Feldspar ... and it has also been rumoured that the gems occurred through some strange alchemy of destruction brought about by the awesome weaponry which once great powers used in their ways, one against the another.

It is true that we are the remnants of a once-powerful and proud nation. The Lore tells us that great multitudes lived in these lands once; their numbers were legion and they had evolved a way of living that was much unlike ours. In many ways it is even now difficult for us to live together in harmony. So that I can almost imagine how difficult it must have been for so many people as were reputed to have lived then, to agree with one another and respect each other.

And as the Lore would have it, there came a time when agreement and respect evaporated and in their place reigned fear and hatred and an unreasoning wish for revenge - for what, I cannot say. And thus was unleashed a horror that rid the earth of its inhabitants. Yes, I know it had little effect in your places, but ours were affected. Even now, in the marshes beyond the forests fencing in this land no one wishes to go. A strange phosphorescence glimmers over the waters; they assume strange shapes and we hear eerie sounds as of the weeping of multitudes.

That is the history, such as it is. What we discovered also is that the men and women could not live happily together. For some reason, after the coming-together again of those who survived, there was much bitterness. The men accused the woman of goading them to war and the women accused the men of deserting them for the glories of war. This, at any rate, is what the Lore tells us.

Over a period of time, a rift ensued and a sharp division of labours came about and with it, a drifting apart of men and women. So that, eventually, we became as you see us now ... the central place and the outlying settlements. The central place is the Keep, inhabited by the Thane and his men. The settlements consist of Sisterhood villages. Over the fields are the mountains and plains which yield our famed gems. The mining and other aligned industry is the men's province. Spinning, weaving, animal husbandry and farming belongs to the women. As does the care of the creches, the instruction-houses. Indeed, that separation of duties, the Lore informs, is no innovation; it has been so, from time immemorial - we have only taken it a step further with our imposition of the physical separation of male and female.

We have our problems but for the most part, the arrangement is a congenial one.

We have a Council of Elders in our Sisterhood, commonly termed the Motherhood. These are comprised of women who have seen much and their counsel has stood us well in times of need. I am the titular head of the Motherhood. I stand alone, however, in never having mothered children. I am the recognized Mother of all, nonetheless. In my place, when my time comes, will be another, groomed from childhood to take her part in our history. We are one, the succession of Rheetas and as such, faceless. this is the reason why that portion of the Lore which tells of man's brutality to women which comes about through close daily living together, is etched on my face in this vermilion dye.

It was done, that scarring, when I was past childhood and I remember nothing of the ritual. I did not go through childhood with this face, but wore a common and quite unremarkable countenance so that I could mingle with the other children and not be kept apart. In this way could I know my people and share their thoughts. Were I to have been known as one set apart, those thoughts and the freedom which comes from consorting with one's peers, would have been withheld from me.

It was with the ascension of my role, my place as Mother Superior, that that other face was removed and my identity revealed. All my predecessors, as I myself will be, were ceremoniously plowed back into the earth from whence they came; to enrich the soil and ensure the bounty of future harvests. It is our way, one which has a long and honourable tradition.

We seek to please that Ultimate Superior, whom we all faithfully serve.

c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld