Snow Castles

Fairytales we know, are for children
and so is the fable that somewhere
there exists a fairyland, where everything
is bright and sparkling and adventure
beckons and everywhere can be seen
smiling faces and fantastic creatures
soft and cuddly, a child's place existing
in fertile imaginations of a Neverland.
But wait, there are such places and they
are real not merely imagined, imbued
with fantasy by their very appearance of
a beauty so deep and ethereal they take
our breath away, and though they do
beckon children to come and play they
also attract those who were once young
to come and stay awhile, to be immersed
in the magical landscape that our very
own resources of nature unbound become 
when winter lingers and late, unexpected
snowfalls cascade to recreate the wonders 
of a snowbound forest with hillside trails 
down which children can sled and delight
themselves in the bosom of a benign day
where the sky empties itself of its late
cache of frozen crystals and the land
below opens itself to embrace it all so
forest stumps become kindly ghosts
and trees are thickly limned in white fluff
and we stroll, wonderstruck, reborn.

 

Have Faith: God is Great

Suspend credulity, all you rational thinkers
whose minds make short shrift of miracles
for this is no miracle but a recognition of the
power of the Almighty, spoken by no less an
authority than Prophet Muhammad (peace be 
upon him): "If you see a fire, then say the takbeer 
(Allahu Akbar) for the takbeer will extinguish it."
And if the divinely-inspired words of the Prophet
are insufficient in their gravity and supreme
knowledge to convince you doubters, take heed
that this manifestation of the mighty force of
the Almighty has been seconded by none other
than research emanating from the prestigious
Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in 
Damman, Saudi Arabia, where Dr. Hani Al-Sayed
drew irrefutable proof that the sound waves
produced by pronouncing 'Allahu Akbar' in
Arabic, for 'God is Great' would not suffice
as the language of Allah only is capable of
producing the effect of extinguishing fire. Now
then, henceforth in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
mechanical fire extinguishers will be haram and
in their place practised utterances of the sacred
words will be all that is required to stem the
flames that would devour home and residents.
Rest assured, faithful in Islam, this invocation
of a Hadith will succeed, but should it not and
ye be consumed by flames be it known that you
and all others who fail are deficient in faith. 

Only the Innocent

The greatest treasure hunt in all existence
is an intangible expression of inexplicable
ecstasy, there for a moment, gone the
next, its evanescent presence the very
simplest and earliest of all our emotions,
pure unalloyed pleasure in the joy of being.
Once experienced, never forgotten, its
memory lingers and we search endlessly
for its source. There issues an exquisitely
feverish journey through life's chapters
in its fruitless, elusive quest, as though
it was but an apparition that nature teased
us with, an unattainable goal we believe
can be achieved but which moves further
and further beyond reach until we replace
hope with resignation realizing that the
ancient search for the Fountain of Youth
had a misinterpreted purpose; not that
its discovery would restore the existential
quality of the angelic horde and we would
live forever more, but that it would act
to briefly restore us to infancy, once more
to experience that joy of being before
age again overcame us to usher us quietly
into the antechamber of sober oblivion.

Checking Privilege Status

I understand from all  the fuss on social
media that because I pass for white I am
inordinately privileged. As a Caucasian in
appearance I am a member of the socially
privileged class. Could've fooled me. Silly
me, that's meant as a pejorative, but there is
for me, I understand, an escape clause; I am
not male. I am old, perhaps that gives me a
victimhood leg up, though I doubt it; I am
definitely not an old black woman, darn!
Unfortunately it's always been my belief
naive though it may be that the gender you
are born within and declared at birth is what
your sex is, which just goes to prove how
hidebound and ignorant the aged are. Given
second thought and everyone should be
given the opportunity to think again, perhaps
I can claim to belong to an oppressed and
horribly victimized minority. I am a Jew, 
or, as anti-Semites would prefer, a Jewess.
I cannot be classified as an immigrant that
was my parents escaping the Holocaust
and nor am I a refugee escaping the fury of
Islam unleashed. Seems obvious I fail to
qualify for the privilege of obeisance to my
role as victim; not as a person of colour nor
a tribal member of the qualified victimhood
class, sigh. Some people get all the breaks.

The Ballot Box

Ah, the mysteries of human nature. We are
nothing if not certifiably pathological in
the cynicism of our smug complacency that
among the political choices to be made only
democracy guarantees the will of the people
will be heard, respected and reflected in the
sacred compact between the governing elites
and the vast populations that squirm under
their lawful rule, unlike those unfortunates
who would vastly prefer to squirm accompanied
by the equality and freedom guarantees enabling
the dissatisfied to complain endlessly in their
futile critiques against the moral and political
economic and social investments to advance
the social weal. They who have little choice
but to be victimized, their liberties and human
rights suborned and violated through the
medium of oppressive, corrupt and powerful
regimes profiting the wealthy and those
with links to power we view with pity and
concern over their irredeemable plight in
life. Yet inexplicably when casting our ballots
with the confidence of those entitled to a
life of certainties and advancement for the
future, we empower the charlatans and racists
the egotists and the pretenders carrying on
the social contract and the long traditions of
superficial dedication to the public that their
lawmaking skills succeed in ensuring those
outcomes benefit not the many but those
like themselves skilled in the black magic
of statecraft advancing their singular interests
in outcomes eerily resembling the rule
of dictators and totalitarians, but politely.

At The Hospital

It is a phenomenon that seems confusing
illogical, downright alarming when you're
among the elderly who just moments before 
felt sprightly and energetic, more than confident 
 in self and sound of mind suddenly transformed 
on entering hospital where gravity becomes a 
surly tyrant implacably tiresome, more than
a tad frightening as agency appears to abandon
you and the slightest incline becomes a challenge 
and a burden tightening your chest and dragging 
your legs. What then might conceivably account 
for nurses speaking a language your ears cannot 
interpret quite, their manner that of an adult 
confronting a querulous, confused child? Where 
patience wears a thin smile and perfunctorily 
civil orders are crisply intoned, obedient 
compliance being the order of this day. Where,
examination complete with the aid of modern
medical marvels, the diagnosis is forthright
relief evident in the doctor's face and voice
fatigued by too many health-damning ones
preceding yours, and elderly, poised yet
hesitant volunteers beam with the pleasure
of usefulness when their sickly peers give
praise and fulsome thanks for their presence.
All well-meant, sincere and professional the 
charity in mood and movement obvious in 
catering to the hearing and sight diminished
possessed by those still in command of a
robust interpretive mind, you see. Ah well!

Night Life

When life has brought you long, long past
childhood when uncertainty brought dark
dreams to haunt your night, then adulthood
concerns introduced you to night-haunting
dark dreams of fearful impact, to the point in
your existence called the golden years and no
longer is your sleep impacted by nightmares
and instead soft dreams tiptoe into the
landscape of your sleeping mind amidst
the presence of familiar surroundings and
people whom you surely know and feel in
their presence a certain contentment so that
when you awake in the morning you are ever
so briefly confused. Is it that life dimly-lit at
night that you are ensconced within, or is it
the life that you know so intimately during
your waking hours? In the former figures tend
on awaking to be shadowy and benign while
in the latter the aura is that of familiarity and
reality among those whose presence is sharp
and knowing. Is it time to be concerned when
as time groans on the distance between the two
becomes less discernible and you hesitate
slightly when matching each in their proper
perspective? Day-life=reality: Night=?