Mountain Arras

At the trailhead tall oaks and bark
exfoliating yellow birches conceal the
forest beyond, bright white blossoms of
raspberry canes relieve the gloom of an
overcast day, and robins sing in
expectation of rain. The mountain trail
winds steeply as it mounts toward its
summit destination. A stream courses
downhill in a narrow trickle from above
perfect habitat for breeding black flies.
Boulders strewn artfully alongside the
trail and among them, blueberry shrubs
and lilies-of-the-valley crowd chummily
around tree trunks of pine, oak and
hemlock. Moose maple and dogwood
comprise the understory. The trail
littered with last fall's abundance of
acorns. The forest floor damp and ferned.
In the dim interior light of the forest
shades of green glow and pulsate
the mountain slope thick with flora
a Northern thrush pealing its praise.
The trail is worn from booted generations
of hikers, erosion revealing a network
of tree roots. The sun timidly probes its
warming rays through parted clouds
then withdraws as wind and darkened
cloud cover make good on the promise
of rain. At the summit, wind-blasted
trees and alpine vegetation sparsely
cover cracks and shallow deposits of
soil on the mountain's granite face.

Disconnect

It is one of the absurd idiosyncrasies
of human nature that we sometimes
know the lives of strangers more
intimately than we do of those most
familiar to our everyday lives. We
deliberately restrain ourselves to
refrain from divulging too much
about our fears and our problems
to those we've long known, yet if
the time is right and the mood
overtakes in sensing empathy of
chance and brief acquaintance all 
is released in a stream of virtual
subconscious revelations, our most
vulnerable thoughts and concerns
theirs to consider, weigh and commiserate
upon. They too become old familiar
faces seen but thrice in as many years
when a need requires a reprieve and
the brief rapport of emotive concern
exchanges as strangers fulfill a role
spreading the balm of human concern
in the pain of life's solitary misfortune.

The Forest Fast

It could be a morosely dark day for
the forest interior is dim and drenched
dusk an early intruder. But the rain has
stopped and an evening thrush sends
its sublime trill through the sodden
atmosphere and the crystal mountain
brook cascades riotously over boulders
that tumbled from the mountain slopes
aeons ago. Deciduous trees newly leafed
glow with a tumult of fresh greens
luminescent in their wet aplomb.
Glowing Ladies Slippers whisper
confidences to Lilies-of-the-Valley strewn
about the forest floor. The understory of
dogwood and moose maple shift in the
wind, droplets easing upon mountain
sorel as elderly hemlocks tipped with
chartreuse new growth lighten the
atmosphere, while red pines soar
to profound heights, their trunks
elegantly tattooed with mosses and
feathered with gray fantasies of lichen.

The Road Trip

You plan and you pack and you
take to the open road driving to a
destination anticipating the change
ahead. If but briefly routine is
interrupted, the familiar left behind
an adventure in the distance and you
yearn to meet it. Your life expands
with expectation so even the lively
colourful sights of spring wildflowers
on the boulevard take on meaning
the daisies and lupins, hawkweed 
and fleabane portend the unexpected
and then two does suddenly appear
beside the highway as you fervently
will them not to cross but turn
back into the verdant woods they
erupted from as you pass. Your 
windshield dapples with rain as a
vulture soars above, the wind quite
obligingly lofting it ever higher its
dihedral spread with leisure under
the dark gathering of storm clouds.

 

The Sodden Scene

Where the mountain summits
reach the sky both are shrouded
in marbled-grey-streaked clouds
and copiously falling rain with
mist rising from the tree-crowded
slopes and the valley below.
There is no sound, an absence of
birds on this formidable day of
promiscuous misery, dark and
dismal and even the lake below 
is shadowed by the all-pervasive 
gloom of perpetual, petulant dusk
on a day that recognizes the
presence of unrelieved night.

Memorable Arras

The mountain trail is deeply
corrugated, ladders of tree roots
etching the soil, dark and moist
from the spray of the mountain
stream boiling ferociously over
the bald granite rock face
tumbling and roaring down
the mountainside to reach the
boulder-crowded stream below
the landscape gripped tightly
in a bruised dark cloud cover
sending opaque grey clouds of
ragged mist obscuring the
mountain peaks. The understory
of dogwood plentifully resembling
ground cover in the rich humus
of the forest floor. Hemlocks
soar to great heights alongside
oak and maple and majestic
yellow birch, exfoliating bark
rich in moss and lichen, the
atmosphere redolent of time 
and the graciousness of nature.

The Lonely Planet

There are times in anyone's life when the
feeling of being bereft, frightened and alone
descends and emotional desolation takes 
possession of the soul in a descent into the
black abyss of loneliness. No one is immune
from this uncertainty so immense it overwhelms
and isolates and the wish to cry out in the
agony of aloneness suffocates the mind that
has surrendered its intelligence to the spirit
of pure unadulterated fear. We all know that in
the final analysis when nature prepares us for
our final departure we will be alone in the 
vast darkness of nothing. But it is while we
make our way through life that we seek the
comfort of another soul's search when two
meet and the spark of love bursts into flame
yet for all too many among  us the goal 
proves elusive and lonely deprivation is the
result leaving those souls lost and bereaved
that their fate is to be condemned to facing
life less the comfort of a steadfast companion
whose presence balms the weary soul. They
are not alone for many who have committed
to sharing life discover that their choice has
been in error leaving them to pursue the
endless search to no avail. This is, for far
too many bruised spirits the reality they 
face absent another human touch reaching
their absent solace. They roam the byways
of life with descending hope buoyed by the
occasional opportunity to relieve their inner
tension spilling their life-misery to briefly met
strangers through the ethernet, passing by
chance on a trip seeking solace, finding none.