The Oversight

No one thought to explain to
Maya the expectation she would
be prepared studiously to become a
humanitarian worker by foregoing
the delights of carefree, exuberant
puppyhood. The wild exhilaration
she experienced with life's
beckoning adventures and
limitless possibilities teased her
almost as greatly as her unbridled 
joy pleased her in human proximity
under the illusion that all humans
yearned to be her champion as
she sprang upon them in an
excess of conceit common to all
creatures who instinctively trust,
reacting to their own sweetly
innocent natures. So it comes as
no surprise that the stern messages
restricting her freedoms and
guiding her toward self-sacrifice
failed to make an indelible
impression on the black Lab.
Maya's visceral ode to life would
not be tamed, and nor will she
placidly guide the blind to live
with her aid, normally. May your
life always be one of unmitigated
liberty and joyful abandon, Maya!

Beyond Entropy

Atop the rotting trunk a veritable
green nursery flourishes, replete
with miniature shrubs and
tree saplings eager to experience
life of their own in the general melee
of rank disorder. Supported by the
decomposition of earlier generations
life thrives as death marches on.
The forest, primal in its capacity
to regenerate timelessly reiterates
itself. Larvae laid by boring
beetles bring the collapse of once
sturdy conifers. Fungi make their
presence on buried, desiccated
tree remnants. Wild gusts of wind
heave hollow, rotted trunks to
shatter on the fern-crusted 
forest floor, out-competing the 
sweet-trilled cardinal with the
violent agony of another tree
felled by age and predation. The
forest is untidily littered with
remains of once-majestic hardwoods
that time and lifespan have abandoned.
Time trickles by with each new season 
invariably producing succession.

Taz The Magnificent

His name is Taz, as in, you know,
Tasmanian Devil, a nod to his
fierce resolution, speed of motion
and discernment of friend or foe.
Taz is quite capable of looking
after himself and while he's 
about it, he takes full responsibility
for the security of his companion
somewhat larger, yet dependent.
His modus operandi is to give
full warning up front, ferociously
bellowing his intent to grapple with
any opponent -- you too, bull mastiffs 
-- should it become necessary.
People and dogs alike stand back
in astounded realization they're
in the presence of a non-nonsense
heroic figure. For Taz is mighty and
he is persuasive. Among his talents
beside his fighting spirit, is his
ability to camouflage, disappearing
into the landscape, a decided
advantage over less skilled
somewhat ordinary dogs, you see.

 

Where the Wild 

Things Were

Bright eyes in a sleek head
and long, painted muzzle, its
tail a generous red torch, the
fox startles at the sound of
human approach and swiftly
abandons its casual reconnaissance
of trails it knows so intimately.
Generations of foxes have been 
familiar with the urban wooded
ravine, where stealthier coyotes
navigate within its steep gorges
seldom to be seen by hikers.
Before the woodland trails 
hosted so many curious bipedal
nature lovers those who ventured
there in fewer numbers satisfied
their aspirations to encounter
wildlife when the foxes merely
stood their ground and quizzically
examined the presence of
intruders, strange yet seemingly
non-threatening. With dread
urban sprawl has arrived those
free-to-run-wild companion dogs
large and larger, looking for
challenges of the case. Now,
they challenge the presence of
wildlife, and they give chase
-- hence the wary red fox.

 

The Garden Stormed

As twilight prepared to cast
its pale veil over the landscape
darkness of a more purposeful 
intent cast off the light of the
sweltering day just as the wind
shifted, bearing with it a heavenly 
convocation of thunderheads
jostling and arguing over which 
had celestial rights to the
pomp and ceremony granted 
the first entitled among them
to announce an ear-clapping
applause for its entry and as 
daggers of ice-sharp lightning
electrified the bruised sky, a
thunderous fanfare escorted
the voluminous downpour, with
rain pelting the parched garden
eager to welcome the lifeforce
of nature's elements nurturing
growth in its gruff elaboration
of luxuriously verdant survival.

 

Bison in a Landscape

A century ago when the land
that was Canada was still raw with
wild nature, they moved as a formidable
force of nature across the prairie
grasslands, a deep and wide carapace
of dark shaggy coats, their hooves
thundering on the landscape
their numbers uncountable
hunted for the sustenance they
provided, their pelts providing
shelter from the winter cold and
raging winds for those who sought
them, the indigenous tribes, the
white trappers, the wolves and the
dreaded wolverines bringing down
vulnerable calves to feed their
ravenous appetites. Those vast herds
no longer thunder through land
now agricultural and pacified, under
the widest sky that nature ever devised.
Yet disparate herds remain, no longer
roaming free to forage and escape
if they can claws and teeth prepared
to ravage their numbers, but within
pastoral landscapes, where they are
bred and raised and shelter under the
searing summer sun in nearby forests
transported from history to the present.

Canada Day

In a flighty display of humanity's
envy of the casual ease of avian
flight, the formation of warplanes
roars through the cloud-littered sky
in an impressive flyby, a jaunty
braggadocio display of power
sound and elegance of an entirely
different quality of the creatures
that the creative genius of nature
bred and cultivated. Given to the
mechanical science of minds to
whom engineering a vessel to
break the bonds of gravity was a
gift by nature to the precocious,
emulation of her bipedal creatures
dissatisfied they were not also 
blueprinted with hollow bones,
wings and aerial aspiration. Now
they fly and nature looks the other 
way as a nation celebrates its nod
to one hundred and fifty years as a
country which nature endowed with
endless lakes, forests and mountains.