Early Harvest, Gusto Press

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

The Steep Ascent

The ascent to Noon Peak
rose sharper than
our expectations
moss cushioning the granite
white/pink mountain clover
stippling the rising swell
tree roots writhing in agony
gripping our climbing feet as we emulate mountain goats
then finally stop to rest
lungs sharing the thin air
energy radiating from us
as though we are
heavenly bodies
heat coursing palpably off
wracked limbs
as though they would
kindle the windfallen trees
cluttering the mountain sides
catching fire to wooded slopes
ourselves the centre
of a glorious blaze.

c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld

Early Harvest, Gusto Press

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

A Cross-Patterned Trail

Even the white sun
promising much in the clear sky
delivers no warmth
this devilish cold day. My
face is taut in the
knife-edge wind.

But down on the frozen creekbed
loping from bank to bank
shifting over fallen trunks
there's shelter. A
downy woodpecker
thrums the bole of a tree

too busy to care about me.
The hills rise snow-round
with curves as sensuous
as those in an Eastern harem.
Stark winter trees are stuck

like candles in the snow
as on a birthday cake.
The spruce and pine comb
cheerful green needles
and a nearby stand of oak

rustles red autumn leaves
in the creeping wind.
I leave behind me a
cross-patterned trail to
puzzle the animals
hunting the winter dark.

c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld

Early Harvest, Gusto Press

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

Pastorale

The setting sun
like an Amondisc
Throwing waning light
in searching fingers
on oblique mountains
fencing the lake
where purple martens
swoop lazily
and robins
offer a paeon
to another day.

The honeyed air
casts an amber glow
over your flesh
mystically
as of some ancient rite
etching the features
of your face
defining the
slow undulations
of your body.

I cup this image
in memory
now and then peruse it
turn it like a
fabled treasure
to catch the light
of another day.

c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld

A Story In Two Parts (1)

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

PRIVATE SPACES

Their family tree was a long and personally distinguished one, meticulously searched by a firm specializing in this certain type of conceit. The money, Mother said, when Father complained of the fee, had been well worth it. "You'd never have known would you, that your great grandfather three times removed was a brilliant mathematician. Would you?" When he ignored her, still grunting as he made out the cheque, she prodded "would you?" and he turned his pallid face to hers, his complexion that same nebulous hue as of a mutant that Van der Eyck had made famous, with those same limpid blue and chilling eyes that warned her she had pushed too far; time to back off.

He would, she knew, pay for her occasional whims, but he expected her to know the limitations their relationship imposed on her. There was a restrained violence in his sinewy form, a threat of punitive treatment that would be meted out to the unruly - a character trait that equally repelled and excited her. His cold dismissal evoked in her a vague fear and a spark of something else - once it had been erotic, her immediate response, and now it was something else, she could not define and did not care to dwell upon. Her spirit had become almost as bruised as her generous and still-tempting flesh which she more frequently now begrudged him in his insatiable demands.

Just to look at him, the stern droop of his mouth, the high jutting bones resting under spare cheeks, the direct gaze, one could see the clergyman piously resting in those hollow bones. It was a diversified background, their duality, a genetic gift to their two boys to make the most of their latent talents, if they only listened to her.

Nothing new had been discovered. The old church records had simply, under the skillful prodding of the professionals she had tired, turned up certainties and verifiable dates where before everything had been handed down word-of-mouth, a family tradition of chance recollection enhanced by a soupcon of fanciful embellishment. The real difference now was that the boys had some concrete proof; the heralded, engraved and trusted certification of all she had claimed which they had shrugged off, uncaring.

There was a tradition of fine art too, on Mr. DeVreis's side; one of his forbears had been famed for his paintings of the Zyder Zee, an accomplishment and history that left him unimpressed; rather, it was the distinguished clergymen and academics that bolstered his secret pride, spread balm on the annoying canker that invariably flared whenever extravagant sums of money were demanded of him. The number of those engaged in simple market gardening on the distaff side on the other hand, confirmed his secret distaste of his wife's deplorable lack in certain values, constraints, even elegance, not to mention native intelligence. It was the peasant in her. She'd chattered on initially about 'genetic vigour', a term she had picked up God knew where - until he told her to shut up. Her formerly admired colouring which he had in their romantic years compared to some exotic fruit now served to remind him of her common roots.

Ironic then, that Mr. Devreis had always insisted the boys realize early the benefits of hard work and that his wife yearned for 'her boys' to cultivate a fine aesthetic taste, eventually make something of themselves as creative artists.

A balance had been struck and every summer for the past three years the boys had been shipped off to work on a nearby farm while their parents fled the discomfort of summers' dog days, to visit relatives in the Netherlands. And every winter during the school year the boys were given private instruction in art appreciation.

The farm work was gruelling, boring, and neither boy's ideal of summer occupation. As for the art lessons, Hans was not particularly taken with them, but he eventually discovered in himself a flair for depiction of the human form.

Hans laughed derisively at Curtis's bucolic landscapes, the scenes their instructor praised so lavishly, that their mother viewed with such rapture. Curtis himself imagined that his art was reminiscent of van Ruysdael, though his sense of self-preservation was acute enough never to be so reckless as to give voice to those fond self-referals. Older than Hans, he was the leader, he was the cautious one, the one on whom parental displeasure fell most often, as he was expected to 'guide' his brother into all the right channels; of behaviour regarding filial respect and social niceties, and finally, academic excellence.

An uneasy truce had been effected between the siblings; Curtis sounding the requisite warnings knowing Hans would happily go about doing whatever came naturally to his carefree spirit, and Hans becoming considerate enough as he matured and just incidentally overtook his brother in a sudden spurt of growth to finally stand a head taller and much broader, to behave a little more circumspectly; that is, he became foxily covert so his misadventures would not reach their parents' condemning eyes, their father's punishing edicts.

Which brings us again to Hans's drawings. For he conceived a compelling fascination with the female form, a not-altogether unnatural attraction for a boy of fourteen, when the sensuous and hitherto largely unknown contours of a woman's body took on all the mystery of most secretive, forbidden, alluring fevers. Hans became inspired thinking of the hidden valleys, moist and warmly inviting, the thrusting, teasing, maddening mounds of quivering flesh. He went through a period of wild obsession, pouring his artistic inspiration onto paper - not any paper, but an artist's vellum as fluid and soft to the touch as the sinuous undulations they yielded under his devoted hand. Nudes, endless depictions of nude women were given birth through the feverish manipulations of his accurate hand, fuelled by his baffling dissatisfaction of society's denials.

"Good", Curtis admitted grudgingly. "But if Father ever gets a hold..."

"He won't", Hans responded confidently, not even certain that he cared. "He never snoops around".

"If he does", Curtis insisted, "I'll get slammed, you know that. Hide the damn things; better yet why keep producing them? Isn't one enough? Or even half a dozen? Why the hell do you keep drawing them?"

"What's the matter with you? Don't tell me they don't do anything for you, old boy."

"Can it analpore, don't bother trying to get a rise out of me. It isn't worth it. And for Chrissake, put the damn things out of sight, will you? You're getting careless, left one out last week. I got in here a few minutes before Mother did, on her cleaning rounds."

"What? It's damn good art! Better than your pissy landscapes. You ever try to do the human form? I'm good, damn good Curt, admit it!"

"Yeah."

So was it capricious chance or deliberate provocation that their mother did come across a few drawings tossed carelessly on Hans's desk. An insufferable challenge to her stubbornly-held belief in the purity of thought and deed of some teen-age boys; her own. She recoiled as though struck, as though one of her boys had seen her undressing, had thoughtfully assessed her gradually creping skin, her sagging mounds. She removed them wordlessly, saying nothing to their father, fearing the art lessons would be discontinued. And she dreamed, oh how she dreamed of one day being the proud mother of famous artists.

Hans became aware, mourned the loss of his precious nudes. He found them destroyed, their luscious mystique profaned. He pieced them tenderly together, the shredded paper with its loving and now discontinued lines matting the bottom of his wastebasket in hurt reproach. He continued his replications of Lilith, Undine, the universal siren; cleverly cached them beneath schoolwork, wool sweaters, in his desk and bureau drawers; behind the accumulation of books and childhood paraphernalia he'd outgrown still on his bookshelves. He hadn't though, quite considered his mother's steely determination and she ferreted out the proscribed and to him, living presences.

Curtis turned an implacable face toward Hans's bitter loss. In this instance at least, he wasn't held responsible for his brother's lapse from respectability. His art, after all, was safe, predictable, admired and admirable. He set a sterling example. He had nothing to do with Hans's perversions.

A silent war had been declared, was waged just as stealthily with no quarter given and none expected, as Hans finally realized he was playing a game with someone whose dedication was fully as rich as his own. She destroyed them, his priceless, peerless companions of the flesh. He felt outraged that his privacy was being invaded.

"Don't draw them any more", Curtis advised; removed, without empathy, artist to artist.

"Right! Draw trees and rivers, like you. There's nothing the matter with me, Curtis, I'm normal, what the hell's the matter with you? How can you keep doing those damn landscapes, they don't mean anything. You're less a person than a puppet!"

"Arsewipe!", Curtis hissed back. "Just because I keep my thoughts to myself doesn't mean I don't have any. I compromise between what I want and what they expect of me. No hassles for me, see? You like the frustration ... have it, keep making those drawings. One of these days she'll get tired of playing your game and go to Father...

But she did not. Their game became a neurotic compulsion of mutual need; their annoyance with each one produced and discovered blossomed from anger to bleed into an impotent hatred as one tried to outdo the other in cunning; he through avoidance and she by sheer perseverance. Curtis remained aloof, on the safe side, a disaffected onlooker, painting his circumspect landscapes, removing himself from the conflict, perceiving Hans's frustration and their mother's stolid determination as an exercise in mindless futility.

Just shortly before they left, the boys for their summer on the farm, and their parents for their European jaunt, she came across a maliciously humorous drawing of a couple having intercourse. The paper had been neatly divided into four rectangles, the activity sectioned into innovative and seemingly improbable positions. How, Curtis wondered when Hans displayed it before him, could he have envisioned such lasciviousness? The limbs twisted so convincingly in their agony or lust, the buttocks jutted so generously, the mouths devoured so hungrily that he knew, just as he knew his mother would know if she saw it, that Hans drew on more than imagination now. He had assuredly gained experience. Curtis looked at his brother with a new and grudging respect, took pains not to alert Hans to his knowledge, felt mortified that his groin was hot, tumescent.

"Good, eh?"

"You're crazy, you're just crazy-dumb. Why'd you do something like this?"

"Good, isn't it?"

"I've never seen anything like it."

"Like it?"

"I don't know. But I do know who won't. You'd better not keep this one. Doesn't matter where you hide it, she'll sniff it out."

"Bitch!"

"Hey, Hans!"

"Okay, what do you think she is, eh?"

"Never mind. Never mind, just remember she's our mother, okay?"

"You may be older than me Curt, but you're a little fart, aren't you? Scared of your own shadow."

"No, you are, not me. I'm smart, that's all. Self-preserving. I don't go looking for trouble. You want it, you've got it. At least this can't be pinned on me. So go ahead, bring things to a head. Hell, why bother hiding it? She's going to find it anyway, so just leave it out. You must be absolutely crazy. Yeah, you're right out of your head!"

When next Mrs. DeVreis entered the boys' room, inured by now to feelings of residual guilt that she was making too much of an ultimately harmless albeit disturbing preoccupation, that she was driving her boys from her; their hostility had become almost palpable,though she felt Curtis was being unfair since she had said nothing to either of them. She hadn't expected to discover a drawing right out in plain view. Before she even approached the bed where it lay in wait for her, she suspected something new. It lay there, a mailed gauntlet, waiting to strike her helpless psyche with the threat of its mocking obscenity. He'll tire of it, she promised herself, approaching the bed. Probably has already; this is a note, nothing more, he's never left one of those out in plain view before.

And when, finally, she stood glowering above it, the drawing seemed to leap at her. The vulgarity, the squatting ugliness of the depiction, the profaning of an act of love. Love? an inner voice sneered at her. Love, what love? is it love when he insists, when he thrusts at your unwilling and unready, your dying body? Is it love that impales you time and again, pounding you closer to your grave? These fleeting thoughts were just that; anarchic and consigned to the waste heap of her helpless resentment.

This time, she felt, the game would have to stop. She would face her son. Rescue him from the filth he wallowed in, bring him back to sanity and decency. Facing him, the offending drawing trembling visibly in her hand, the soft vellum edges seemed sharp with venom, biting her melting flesh as though diseased.

"Hans - what filth!"

"It's not", Hans replied calmly, eyeing his mother with unconcealed distaste; her mauve-wool enveloped bulk, dark blond hair straying from its accustomed hug around her broad face. He stood his ground, himself tall and solid, broad and muscular, youth's face beginning to fade behind the man's positively flaring nostrils, lips curled in a male's rejection of female hysteria. "It's human nature after all, isn't it?", he probed cleverly, like a surgeon deftly inserting a knife to remove an unwanted growth. Oh, innocence!

"Not this - this filth!", she shuddered. Feeling herself grow faint, the paper fluttered from her nerveless hand, came to rest at her feet. Her eyes were drawn to it again, that couple writhing in Godless lust; an abomination. God give her the strength to see this through. Her own child, her son doing this to her. What had she ever done to deserve this?

"It's just a couple, coupling", he said lightly, deliberately contrasting his calm reaction in response. So that hers would assume proportions of madness. Oh, clever boy! "Nothing", he said offhandedly, "to get so mad about".

"You're mocking me!", she wailed, desperately.

"No, why would I?" he denied reasonably.

"You're making love appear obscene, and that's unforgiveable", she finally said, equilibrium, dignity regained. "And for that, my son, you've lost my respect."

Later, Hans told Curtis he'd never known his mother to respect him. And it was sex, S E X, he'd been depicting, not love. And if she thought lovemaking was so great how come he heard scurries in the night and urgent whispers of "leave me alone!".

And he didn't so much mind that he'd lost her respect, he said, but it rankled that he had to forego two straight weeks of dessert, after a harder penalty of no dinner the first two days, as penance for her sanctimonious rejection of him. Not that she was a great cook anyway, but because he was a growing lad, he said, and he had a sweet tooth, and to deny him the simple pleasure relishing food was punishment unsuitable to his age; it was demeaning discipline and stupidly vengeful.

He stoked up at the school cafeteria but resented the desperate stealth, the melting away of his allowance, the gnawing dissatisfaction of an evening's bleak anticipation. His stomach rebelled at the heavy burden imposed on it during the day and it groaned its depletion in the evenings. His metabolism refused to adjust to this unfair new distribution of fuel and he was miserable with discomfort.

"I can't sleep on an empty stomach", he told her after two days.

"Too bad", she responded with obvious satisfaction. Having sacrificed his oral needs and pleasures to his sexually-obsessed determination, denied him one sensuous pleasure after the other, she scented vindication.

"What's the use if I can't tell someone?" Hans snapped.

"Look, keep it to yourself. I just don't want to hear about it", Curtis objected. Useless, though. Hans described with minute relish his surreptitious rummaging about in their father's night-table paraphernalia; the locating of the condoms, the careful pinpricks and conscientious replacing of every last object in the position in which they were discovered.

And they waited.

When their mother's bluffly red-brick colour took on a pasty cast, when she complained of nausea, they locked eyes, one with mild trepidation, the other amusedly triumphant, to the thickening of her form. But they were precipitate; they were destined to be disappointed, as the doctor diagnosed it as nothing but an iron-deficient condition that medication would alleviate. The sterile psyche was lodged in an inert casing whose ovum passed listlessly on a red tide, never to be fecundated by their father's impotently seeking fishlets.

And not long after the sex-cartoon episode, Father discovered Curtis pleasurably passing the time in mild flirtation and badminton across the back fence with a neighbouring girl. Painfully shy, jealous of his brother's assured manner and good looks, hating the spare meanness of his own physique and lean face so closely resembling his father's, Curtis had been overjoyed at this minor success, this casually bantering exchange and sport-fun with the girl.

Although nothing was said later directly about the lapse - the lazing about in the sun - a series of odd 'little jobs', as Father called them, such as scraping recalcitrant paint off outside window-frames and painting them in that same gangrenous green; cleaning out the impolite accumulation cluttering the cellar; and patching the hugely growing gaps in the cement of the garage floor - arduously mixing new cement and trowelling it on, were assigned to Curtis.

Much after, tired and foul-tempered, longing now for the few days to pass when they would be at the farm where the work load was no more palatable, but the pretense of a happily engaged familial environment could be dispensed with, Curtis ruminated on the therapeutic value of revenge. Hans had done it, got away with it, why not him?

Rising out of bed two nights running, ducking threatening sounds in the night-settling house, he made his dark way to the bathroom, groping along the walls to pluck his father's dentures out of the glass tumbler they gleamed within, and pissed on them, holding them carefully over the toilet bowl. Serves him right, he told himself; angry for succumbing to the juvenile trick; for leaving them in the bathroom where we all have to look at the damn things. He'd always hated seeing them there, sneering, as if there was to be no privacy in the loo either. The teeth appeared distorted, hugely grinning in the water-filled glass, contortions they never assumed when Father wore them.

Revolting things, they seemed to wink conspiratorially at Curtis, as though he and they shared a private little joke.

c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld

A Story In Two Parts (2)

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

PUBLIC PLACES

"Look, Stupid ... have at Geneva, but lay off Sybil!"

"Geneva's a dog!"

"She'd let you do anything."

"Big deal, I've had her."

"You know Sybil's not like that."

"They all are, just some of them need encouragement."

"I'll be held equally responsible, anything happens. Remember what Dad said."

Finally, a promise. Not that he believed Hans, but he'd tried. "Christ! alright, alright, what the hell's the difference? She's nothing special."

Both girls lived in the main house. Geneva slept downstairs in a room off the parlour, with her mother. Mrs. Paull did the housekeeping for the Hulleys, cooked for them. Mrs. Hulley wasn't exactly sick but she never seemed well either, wandering around the big old farmhouse, a housedress-sloppy wraith.

Sybil played the flute and sometimes Curtis would see her practising outside, sun glancing off the silver rod as her fingers plied the keys. She practised between the boundary of the apple orchard and a grazing field where her father kept his steers. Curtis watched from the second story of the barn as she arranged herself on the grass, played scales, the sound floating thinly on the breeze. The sound there, yet not there. He strained to hear the eerily wispy strands and it seemed she might be teasing him.

Something about the reedy sound of the flute attracted the animals. Invariably, a group would sway ponderously through the field beyond to form a half-circle on their side of the fence, stupid heads lowered, twitching ears and tails against the everpresent flies.

In his dreams Curtis became a steer, was transformed to a bull, the appendage hanging hot, heavy with lust; he rammed the fence and ravaged Sybil. Clearly, he could see her face drenched with tears as she eluded him running, screaming and finally evaporating. He awoke mumbling, sweating, disgusted.

Mr. Hulley used the fixed-house method for his cattle in the winter, didn't bother to clean the barn throughout the cold months, so when spring came the building was a stinking morass. Curtis and Hans had the job of forking the offal-splattered hay onto a flat-bed wagon. Later it would be used to fertilize the fields, the sumptuous stench breaking down into the dirt, encouraging another cycle of growth.

There was a scoop running on a pulley, to pick up the stuff as they shovelled it into the centre lane of the barn. They came out splattered, clothes reeking, Curtis certain his pores were permanently clogged with offal. He'd never be able to wash clean.

When they trudged up to the bathhouse, if Geneva saw them she'd laugh. Once, Hans ran after her, grimy with ordure. She squealed like a panicked pig as he gained, finally threw her to the ground, covered her with his filthy clothing. Mrs. Paull flew out of the house, large and angry, shouted at Hans, told him he'd eat in the bunkhouse.

That night Curtis dreamed of tumbling Sybil on the manure-wagon. Wasn't she humbled? Lost her cool. Brought down to his level. Dainty Sybil who wouldn't soil her hands. Didn't she change? Pleaded with him to love her, didn't she? But nothing; the dream was inconclusive. He woke, couldn't recall what had happened. Stupid, really, to think of her like that. She was pure, virginal. Innocent and above or rather beyond, his puerile fantasy. Different, she was. Right, Curtis?

"What do you suppose's wrong with Mrs. Hulley?"

"Don't know, don't care. We're here for a summer job Hans, not to get involved with those people."

"Yeah, yeah. But aren't you curious?"

"No."

"Jeez, I bet you believe that shit Dad tells us about hard work and being in the country is character-forming, eh?"

"That's got nothing to do with it. I don't like them, can't be bothered. Now shut up and let me read."

Should have been asleep long ago. Had to get up early enough. Put in two hours before they even got breakfast. Shut bloody well up, Hans.

"Nothing wrong with wondering. I think she must have T.B. or something, the way she's always going around hacking. A rack of bones."

"Fine. Now we've diagnosed her, go to sleep."

"Hell, why should I? You're reading."

"I'm trying to read!"

"Hey, you really get off on that stuff, huh? Dad'd kill you if he ever saw you reading stuff like that. S'what he calls smut, isn't it?"

"Shut up!"

"Like I was saying, there's nothing to her, right? Right. Well, look at Mrs. Paull. A big woman like that. Jeez, let me tell you what I think...."

"Christ! I don't want to know!"

"...what I think, fact what I know is the old man's banging off Mrs. Paull. Now what do you think of that?"

"Shut up."

***************************************************************

It was a huge old barn, with a stone foundation. Boards so wide the size of the trees they were torn from must have been staggering. The boards had contracted slightly in some places so slender wires of light shone through into the barn during the day. Grain was stored in great bins upstairs. Field mice scuttled around in the bins. Rats too. Once, Hans pitchforked a huge black rat and they marvelled at the size of the noxious thing, joked about the Black Death. It had squealed ear-piercingly until Hans bashed it to jelly on one of the pine supports.

No real reason to be there in the loft that time of evening. Looking for privacy, that's all. Intended to light one of the kerosene lamps, do some reading, unmolested. Mr. Hulley would kill him if he found out. Always telling them about how easy it was to catch fire in the barn. But he'd be careful.

He was careful, quiet and stealthy, groping up the ladder. Careful not to arouse any of the brooding hens over on the other side. They'd cackle in their mindlessly panicked way and Mr. Hulley would hear the racket, might think a fox got in. He was quiet, all right. So quiet he could hear the rodents rustling in the grain.

But that was straw rasping around, not grain. And it was the husky voice of Mrs. Paull he heard not the scratching of a rat. Warm, not harsh the way it always was, the voice. Giggling, gurgling. What was she doing?

Hell of a thing if he got caught. No, they were the ones, not him. Making so much noise he wouldn't be heard if he fell down the ladder. Mr. Hulley's voice, asking nicely, not like it sounded when he ordered them around, but wheedling with her, guffawing when she giggled.

What's the hurry, Curtis? Stick around, maybe you'll learn something. think about it, what it might be like, hmmm? No use. He swelled all right, but the thought of himself thrashing about over the woman's huge flaccid body revolted him.

************************************************************

Town was nothing special, just a break from the farm. A hardware store, feed-and-grain store, lumberyard, fabric shop, supermarket. Two churches on dusty streets; the same edifices that steeple every small Ontario town, beside them the manses. One greasy-spoon, one poolroom.

In the fall, when the binder-twine festival called for celebration the town came alive, everyone happy, bashed. Banners strung across Main Street marking whatever anniversary was hallmarked; baking, sewing contests, plowing matches. Ordinarily though, dull, depressing. Streets running off the main thoroughfare where people lived, never coming out of their houses. Like Mrs. Hulley, wandering dully behind curtained windows. Sometimes a pot of bright red geraniums hanging on a wooden porch added a forlorn touch of cheerfulness.

Younger kids hung around the entrance of the pool hall, waiting to grow up. Older ones with surly mouths, challenging them; anything to relieve the boredom, the stiflingly cloistered, ingrown atmosphere.

At the community park Curtis left Hans and Geneva sitting under a willow dipping slender branches into the stream that bisected the town. Same stream that meandered through the farm, broadened out, ran off for miles, a ribbon of brightness.

"Aw, stay with us", Geneva pouted, asked as he walked away "what's the matter with him, anyway?"

"Jeez, he's queer, didn't you know?"

What's the matter, Curtis? Why so hot, so mad, so dissatisfied? Hey, what's the matter, Curtis?

Up the long heat-filled road, stones turning under sneakers, hardly any traffic, stepping on beetles, hearing them crunch. No good in anything, no satisfaction anywhere. What the hell is the matter? What's the matter with me, anyway?

A large arched gateway, wood, a sign: "Gracey Parklands". Nice cedar hedge, nice aroma; cedar. Rotten mosquitoes. Count them; killer.

All right, give it a try. See what lies beyond. Private property - so what, let them throw him out. Up the gravel road, into a park-like setting, the stream running through here too, sentried by willows hunched over the water, their leaves tumbling green, hiding the stream. But you could hear it.

Nicely tended grass, not the usual rank scrub. The road winding up the hill, and what's over the hill? Steps here fall soft, soft on the grass, in a hollow here, Curtis; nice. Wind picking up, tossing voices over there, over the hill. Like a dream, huh?

Have a look at the stream, wind through the trees, and there's a waterfall. Small, but a waterfall anyway, the water cascading in a silver flume. So that's why the water sounds so loud.

Sybil? Sitting there? No, not her. This girl has dark hair. Unreal, everything. Imagining things? Hey, is that someone sitting there, or nothing at all, through the curtain of leaves? Step on twigs, make some sound, so you won't surprise her, whoever she is.

Surprised anyway.

"It's all right." But she stands up, looking at him with the undecided, startled eyes of a doe.

She might feel threatened, he standing so much taller. Better to sit down, turn face to the water, hug knees as she had.

"What is this place?"

"Gracey Parklands."

"I read the sign. What's it mean?"

"It's a girls' summer camp. There aren't any boys here."

"I was just walking by. I'm working on a farm for the summer, not far from here. It's nice here."

"Yes."

"So that's all the noise I hear over there, then, campers."

"Yes. They've having games competitions."

"Not you?"

"No. I don't like to do those things. Besides, no one likes me. I'd rather be by myself."

If you want to look, then turn slowly. Hair pulled back in braids so tight her skin has a taut look, that's why her eyes look so big. Smile, Curtis, she'll smile back. See?

"I like to be alone too. Usually."

See? Nothing to it. She's reassured. Your intentions are merely friendly. Oh, cunning Curtis, and now you have a meek and mild companion, a little girl, oh what say, about thirteen? Those lumps are fairly undeveloped, she's tall and skinny, the shorts and tee shirt don't do much for her, but nice looking. And sitting right close beside you too, isn't that companionable? Voices over the hill thinner now, straining thinly through the leaves.

What's that? A rabbit? A hare. Nice, isn't it, just sitting here in quiet communion with nature and a nice girl for company. Oh, study the landscape Curtis, weigh the sounds, the smells, the textures and colouration of the arras. A remarkable composition, wouldn't you say?

"What's why I sit here. I see things when I'm still. Rabbits come out all the time. Groundhogs too. They browse, don't seem to mind if I'm sitting here as long as I'm still."

"Why doesn't anyone like you?"

"Why? Because I read too much and don't want to be with anyone. They said I can't get any books out of the camp library for the rest of the week. They said I have to get along with everyone."

"Oh. Who said?"

"The counselors. They're all right, but they say I've got to learn to socialize. I don't want to."

"I don't blame you. But what are you doing here at a camp, then?"

"My mother said it would be a good experience. That's what she always says when she thinks I should do something I don't want to do. She's just glad to be rid of me. I bug her. She doesn't much like me around."

"Maybe it only seems that way."

"Nope. I know how she feels about me. I like it here all right. But I don't like sleeping in a dormitory and I don't like eating in a long hall at a big table and I don't like not being alone when I want to, and not being able to read whenever I want to."

"Neither would I."

"My name is Alix. I hate my mother."

"Hmmm."

"Anyway, you better go now. No boys are supposed to be here."

Oh, not so quick, not just yet. Permit your eye to rove over the landscape Curtis, appreciate it. What a magnificent and solitary landscape. Impale the memory of it on your inner lens, paint it on the canvas of memory.

If he moved, quickly..." No one would hear, the spot so secluded.

God, what was he, anyway? What was the matter with him! Was he sick? Or was there something like this in everyone?

"You going?"

"Soon."

"You better. If they find you here...."

They? Camp authorities. Counselors. Someone in charge. But there was no one near. The sounds from over the hill gone, nothing now but the sound of the water, some bird calls; the silence of trees thick in a conspiracy to shield him, them, from watchful eyes.

Bet she doesn't trust you, eh Curtis? Probably watching sideways out of the corner of her eyes while she's picking at the grass, there. Seems nervous, don't you think?

"Yeah, I'm going. Time for me to get back, I guess." Ask, why not ask, what can you lose, Curtis?

"Alix ... would you be interested ... if I came back next week. Would you be here?"

"Why? Why should I? And you're not supposed...."

"No one would know. I'll bring some books." Curtis, you're lonely, right? The other thing, that's what they call a momentary aberration. See? No more swelling, no ache, nothing. This skinny little kid couldn't turn anyone on.

"You don't look like someone who - like my mother's always saying, would molest me."

"Molest you?" Throat dry, feel strangled, swallow...come on!

"What do you ... forget it, what I said, about next week. It's not such a good idea, after all."

Laughing? At him?

"Molest! Like that? Stupid word! She can't even say rape or anything like that, my mother. Too crude. She thinks maybe the word would strain my imagination. Shows how stupid she is, telling me to look out for myself, not talk to anyone I don't know, not hang around parks, go out after dark, because none of those things helped and it was her own brother who looked after me. Good old Uncle Barnie. He was supposed to look after me. Well, he did that all right."

God! Her own uncle.... "That's sick! Didn't you tell anything? Your mother....?"

"My mother? Tell her anything? She'd say I made it all up. Punish me. Anyway, what's the difference, I'm telling you so you know I'm not as innocent as you may think. I can look after myself."

"Oh."

"What kind of books?"

"What...?"

"The books. You said you'd bring some books. What kind?"

******************************************************************

A bird rose in panic through the air bruised with the agony of her silent suffering. Her mouth huge, but no eruption of sound, nothing came out. Could she have screamed and I didn't hear it? No, no scream. Fast Curtis, you're damn fast.

Better leave now, Curtis. Boys aren't supposed to be here.

c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld

The Primeval Elements

Out of a darkly bruised sky
clouds hanging like
rotted plums, bruised and ripe.
Crows like harpies crest the wind;
leap-winged avengers.

A widening gap
the incandescent flame
of the hesitant sun
breaking in a glory of
burnished chemical reaction.

Gloom sulks in a
back corner of the sky
crouching, like a leopard
preparing to strike.

Suddenly a lake's ransom
of strident, gushing rain
pounds the landscape below;
vengeful opposition
to the sun's entitlement.

c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld

A Treasured Gift

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

She was feeling her old cheerful self, following Cliff to the front door, obligingly helping him with his green all-weather coat. Just as she had used to do when the children were young and still asleep when he readied himself for departure. The thought of her impending birthday, on her mind the last week, momentarily slipped her mind.

Her husband turned, smiled at her - a tall sandy-haired man with kind grey eyes that always made her feel like melting with pleasure when he smiled at her. She returned her husband's smile, waiting for a goodbye kiss as he buttoned up. She watched perplexed as his smile turned to a puzzled frown, followed his downward gaze and saw his long narrow fingers fumbling with a button-hole sans button. Damn. She'd seen the button come off the evening before.

She raised her eyes to his. Frown gone, a flicker of amusement danced over his lips, twitched his cheeks as he bent to kiss her, then was off. No reproach; his silence more than adequate. Odd, how a little thing like that could depress her lately. Even when she told herself he could sew it back on himself. She knew he was perfectly capable but felt that like so many other things it was her duty.

Later, preparing to send the children off to school, the girls arguing as usual, David placidly ignoring them, eating his robust breakfast, the twins whining about who was going to bring an apple to their grade one teacher. She responded automatically to the demands, a half-ear bent to her children's bouts of competitive jostling.

"You've just got to lend me some of your records, Trish, you've got to!" Caroline turned to face her mother, including her in her desperate plea: "Mom, she's got to! I promised Marilyn she could count on me for some cool records for her sleep-in!"

" Don't got to", Trish returned imperturbably. "You want cool records, get your own. That'll teach you to hoard your allowance. That'll teach you to promise things that don't belong to you", satisfaction at the reasonableness of her argument visible through on pursed piousness of her mouth.

"Have to", Sheila corrected, abstractedly. Caroline turned in triumph to your sister. "See! Mom says you have to!"

"Don't! I don't have to ... do I, Mom?"

"What? Oh. Well, don't you think it would be nice to help your sister out of her dilemma?" Sheila asked, knowing the reply. "Well then, consider this", she mediated: "how about renting them out? So much per record per day?"

She left the girls to agree on a rental fee, turned her attention to her twins, Jill and Jason. A compromise soon reached there. Jason could take the apple and Jill would raid the fall garden of its rusty glory of marigolds and zinnias. Sparingly, Sheila cautioned the eager child.

"He offered me fifty cents", David informed his quarrelling, querulous, placating family; apropos of nothing.

"Who did, dear?" Sheila asked, handing a pair of reasonably blunt secateurs to Jill.

"The old guy just moved in up the street."

"Old guy? She knew of no old people on the street. "Where, where did they move in?" she pursued.

"Next to Harrisons's", David clarified.

"Why, I saw those people, Margaret Harrison introduced me to them David, he's not at all old."

"But I refused. I enjoyed raking up their lawn."

"David", Sheila persisted, "your own mother is about the same age; do you think I'm old?"

"I don't think it's right to charge someone for doing something you enjoy, do you, Mom?"

They talked tangentially, each involved in a solitary thought process, David proud of his code of conduct, refusing a well-earned tip, his mother upset that her son identified as 'old'. I should just forget it, it's just the way kids talk; they're thoughtless. He doesn't really think I'm old.

The house emptied of their clamour, the only sounds left that of the FM radio playing Telemann's Water Music (which should have soothed her but did not) she inspected her face in the powder-room mirror. Pushing her hair back at the temples she counted new silver hairs, let her dark brown hair fall back around her face, hiding them. Carefully scrutinized her cheeks, leaner than they had used to be when youth had fleshed them. That delicate mapwork she traced with her fingertips around eyes and lips vulgarly identified as wrinkles, a companion of ageing.

Leaving the breakfast mess she sat listlessly on the sofa in the living room, looked at the early morning sun streaming through the dining room windows opposite. She recalled how upset she'd been at her thirtieth, how Cliff had assured her chronology meant nothing, it was how you felt. Then it was thirty-five. At thirty-five she told herself she was closer to forty than she was to thirty. That crisis was weathered too. She adjusted to the statistics describing her as 'middle-aged'.

She needed someone to assure her she was still vital, attractive. Her husband too busy; the successful executive personified. Immature, she told herself. He probably thinks you've outgrown that childishness. But she felt inconsolable. If David thought her old, did Cliff?

On Tuesday her mother called to remind her she was expecting the whole family; her sisters and brothers and their families for a little 'get-together'. "But Mother", I'm afraid Saturday evening is out of the question I told you last week, we've got tickets for a T.S.O. event and we've made reservations to eat out."

"All right, dear". her mother acceded, "we'll switch to Friday night." Damn! I'm thirty-nine and she still treats me like a kid. Still throwing 'surprise' birthday parties, as though I'd never suspect, from one year to another. At least to her mother she wasn't old.

Wednesday evening, bridge night. Moody, lethargic and didn't want to go, knew how everyone depended on their little clique to get out. Anyway, Cliff informed her cheerfully, he planned on a work-free evening at home. Monopoly with the kids. Just to jog their memories that they have a father. Great, one night when I could've enjoyed his company, I'm going out.

At June's place the three old friends greeted her, the den theirs. Everyone else be banished one night a week when they were together, boosting morales, gossiping; a rejuvenating process; for a brief few hours they were not matrons, but school chums.

A gift-wrapped box on the card table; never forgetting birthdays or anniversaries. She Tore the paper off the box, the others quipping negligees, black, silky, slinky; she could modell it for them. She knew whatever was in that box would be meant as a tender little poke at her sensibilities.

"Sheila, move it!" they chorused. On Lana's fortieth, she'd been presented with a gleaming set of false teeth, and Doris had been given a long pair of woolly pink bloomers. June, the youngest, had yet to look forward to a dreaded token of the others' affectionate spite. Sheila was considering adult diapers for June. She pulled the top off the box trepidatiously, with withdraw a fine bone china flower-laden basket. She displayed the treasure.

"It's lovely, girls. I'm really touched. Thank you so much."

"Glad you like it, love. We took a vote, decided the only one with some class would get your gift this year". Do they think I can't take the same ribbing? Is that how delicate they suspect my emotional equilibrium is?

She played a poor hand of bridge. When June brought in a beautifully iced cake and the coffee, they sat around and gossipped. Doris rendering an account of her brother's desertion by his wife of twelve years. "My heart just breaks, thinking of him alone now. He was crazy about her. And the kids, all under ten. My God, I don't know how he'll manage."

"Why'd she leave? Isn't he the youngest of your family, the one you always said had a perfect marriage?" "Well, yes. But how was I supposed to know it wasn't as perfect as it looked? I don't know why she left. She had everything she could want, far as I know." They fell silent. If everything was so good, why would a woman leave? They relished hearing about someone else's misfortunes; it made their own lives appear much more valuable.

"Well", Sheila finally burst, "maybe things just weren't as they seemed to be. What if her husband was devoted to her in an absent-minded kind of way, what if her children depended on her for everything, and took no note of her as a person. There's just so much a person can give. It's not fair, there has to be some kind of, I don't know, a more tangible reward than just the satisfaction of giving all the time. Maybe she got tired of being taken for granted."

"Maybe", Doris conceded. An awkward silence. All eyes appraising her. Lana as the oldest, the spokeswoman, cleared her throat and asked: "Sheila? Anything the matter, dear?" Sheila felt a blush overwhelm her will to betray nothing. They always took everything so literally.

"No! No, of course not. You needn't think I'm about to run off somewhere. I'm happy with my life. It's just that I can empathize. Sometimes the woman, the mother does kind of get left out when the satisfactions, the recognition, the plaudits are being handed out. Don't you think?" Silence, consternation, strain; they soon broke up the gathering.

Thursday morning she went shopping and watched a muscular young man load her groceries into the car trunk. She thanked him, smiled gratitude offered a tip. He smiled back, said "y're welcome, ma'am". Used to be "Miss". Driving out of the plaza, she passed the bus stop, tooted, gestured to a neighbour to get in with her parcels.

"Nice of you to stop." "Not at all. I know how much I appreciated a lift when I didn't have a car."
"Harold and I", her neighbour said, "plan on getting another car in a few years' time. You've had a head-start on us, been married longer". And that's a back-handed way of saying I'm older than you, Sheila mused.

"You know, Sheila", Amy confided blithely "I do so envy you."

"Oh?"

"You seem to have so much energy, such verve. From a distance, it's hard to tell you from a much younger woman."

"Oh."

"In fact I was telling Harold just the other day I hope to look as good as you when I'm your age."

The miserable cat. Her spleen will age her twice as fast when she reaches forty.

And when David came home from school, enthusing about 'old man' Harrison agreeing to sign on to his paper route, she was thrilled again. Trish went at her again about wearing eye makeup to school. Sheila was adamant. No thirteen-year-old should wear makeup. Her daughter wasn't interested in lipstick, something her mother might allow; she stamped upstairse. Caroline, front and forward, assured her mother she wasn't interested in mucking her face up like a clown.

Jill later insisted it was her turn to 'smash' the potatoes for dinner. Jason tossed the salad, messing up the kitchen floor. The dentist's office called to remind about Caroline's appointment, and the girl gloomed from the kitchen to the dining room, a suffering waif she setting the table. By the time Cliff called to say he'd be an hour late - don't wait on dinner, he'd grab something at the cafeteria - she was gritting her teeth.

But that was just the appetizer. Cliff's hour dragged into three. In that interval dinner was eaten, Jill and Jason reminding everyone they'd 'cooked' dinner. David whistled his ritualistic monotone ("Well gee, Mom, I've got to practise my embrasure.") Trish was icily polite with her 'yes-mother', 'no-thank-you-mother', and Caroline still grumped about her grim anticipation of a dental visit.

David's turn to wipe the dishes. Like his father, a perfectionist. Excruciating, determined to wipe the gold-leaf pattern from every platter, assiduously applying the tea towel. Trish standing by, glowering glum impatience; her turn to put everything away. Her silent antagonism unsettling Sheila.

Still later, strains of Caroline's recorder drifting downstairs, piercingly (the sopraninio) when she hit a series of screeching notes. Trish practised her scales (working out her aggression) on the old upright in the recreation room, badly in need of tuning. In their crowded little den, Jill and Jason debating whose program choice it would be. Jason belligerently standing in front of the television, daring Jill to change the station.

They've got to resolve their differences, work everything out themselves, halting her instinct to intervene. They've got to learn to deal with their own social problems, you won't always be around. David, to her relief was outside with his friends, playing street hockey, not practising his trumpet for the school band. She knew none of her children had any promise as virtuosic performers. She also knew the auditory ambiance was house-chaotic. No wonder Cliff worked late.

Nowhere was privacy, anything hinting of temporary isolation from all the distractions. All those rooms in a spacious house, every one pre-empted, or too proximate to the tenanted one for comfort. She crept up to her bedroom, shut the door, settled in an armchair, a load of junior library books on the floor. To select a few for her reading session at the school her youngest attended.

Isolation from the din short-lived. A tentative series of taps, becoming impatient knocks. Jill's curly head around the corner of the slowly opening door. Her indignant figure planted before Sheila. Demanding shrilly, self-righteously, that Sheila "go right down 'midjitly, 'cause Jason's 'haviour's 'trocious".

By the time their father hauled himself home the younger ones were in bed, Sheila not the least bit inclined to spend what was left of the evening in chummy conversation. Early next morning Sheila woke hearing someone tiptoeing downstairs, heard china clinking, too tired to nudge herself out of half-slumber. When she did descend, there was the table set, everything prepared. Trish bustled about the stove, seconded by Caroline in perfect, accord chiming "Happy Birthday, Mom!". She was touched.

As the morning progressed, Jill complained about the oatmeal 'mush' she had to eat, complained further when David kicked her under the table, hissing this was a 'special' morning. Her birthday; crossing the critical threshold of the mature thirties into the unknown. Cliff had kissed her a purely mechanical ritual farewell. But stopped an instant to peer at her, leaving her wondering how she must look. Dropped her eyes, fumbled with the cord of her dressing gown.

Soon as the kitchen was cleaned up, upstairs to check the beds. All done, even hers and Cliff's. She took a moment to correct a potentially emotional scene later in the day when Jill would discover she'd placed her stuffed turtle on its back. Too bleary-eyed - it happened before. The child frantic that Myrtle had spent the day on her back. Common knowledge how dangerous that was for turtles. Poor Myrtle half dead from hapless sun exposure and wild prowling turtle-eating animals.

She gathered the usual batch of children, marching them to the library where they grouped around as she took a rocking chair. They sat docilely at her feet. One little girl on her lap, possessively helping turn pages, solemnly telling the others to "shush" unable to view the pictures. The children's focus as she read stories always moved her. Some children drew closer. Pieces of her skirt in grubby little fingers, twisting the fabric with worry for the little squirrel in the story. Others stroked her nylon-covered legs, played with the buckles on her shoes. It was all she could do to hold her attention to the text. Tactile contact important.

Two additional sessions with older kids. She went to the teachers' lounge to lubricate her throat with that vile instant coffee. Eleanor, school principal was there, pleasant. Wondering if Sheila would be interested in coming in one other day. Work specifically with slow learners. "Any by the way", Eleanor said, "have you given any more thought to coming back to work? You taught for years, your presence here ample testimony you enjoy the work. We could use you, working with the younger ones, kids from broken homes needing a little extra warmth."

"I've thought about it. I don't know if I could manage a job right now. I know all about Parkinson's Law", she laughed ruefully. "I'm not certain it would accommodate itself to my current frame of mind. I don't feel I have that much flexibility now."

Lunch time David wolfed his food, anxious to return for broomball. Caroline and Trish had their lunch at school, bused to a junior high. Just Jill and Jason. "Momwhat kind of cake you baking?" Sheila looked blankly at her daughter. Bake a birthday cake for her own birthday? Jason looked interested, recommended a devil's food cake. Jill argued for strawberry cake.

Heading off another dispute, Sheila claimed the flavour would a surprise, her birthday, her choice. When they left, she found an old Centennial cake recipe; maple syrup would be the flavour of the day. She assembled the ingredients. Miserably.

She woke after a brief afternoon nap that had her steeped in self-pity, weeping for years gone. Her trapped in mother-love, children-dependence, submerging her in a state of emotional indebiture beyond her will. She wanted her independence, her time, her spontaneity, her choices in life restored.

When she woke she felt a touch on her cheek, someone breathing beside her. Cliff, kneeling beside the bed. Wiping her damp eyes, bending to kiss her forehead. A flood of tears, again. He gathered her up and rocked her.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It's all right. Don't say anything else."

He gave her an antique brooch, a cameo of a mother and child, to celebrate her motherhood, no, her birthday. The cameo, carved from a piece of glowing amethyst, hung from a delicate gold chain, a gold pin affixed to its back, so it could be worn either way.

Exquisite. "I love it", she told him.

"You're exquisite, and I love you", he said. More soberly: "I've been thinking about all that time spent at the office, bringing work home. I'm not arranging my time well. I talked to Fraser this morning. We had a good long talk, and he understands. Things will be just a little different from now on."

Treasure this, Sheila told herself. Not the cameo; his perception, his unanticipated empathy. But don't fool yourself. He means well, things will be different at first. Then there'll be a certain amount of benign forgetfulness, recidivism. The old pattern re-established. Time being, I'll wallow in this pleasure. I'll be stronger for the thought of his delicate intuition. A quality I thought only women were endowed with.

c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld