Heat Wave
Sailing high in a cloudless sky
of azure delight the
searing sun turns its molten
face on the landscape
as a benevolent giver of life
sometimes extracting a
price for its
generosity of golden heat
aided by the hot breath
of the wind
streaming through
the forest canopy
shrivelling foliage
clacking tree masts
stimulating wildlife
to seek shelter
from this genial
natural partnership....
The Waiting Room
In the quiet drumbeat of aging humanity
they arrive in droves, like supplicants
resembling those of faith but not within
the rarefied confines of holy orders but
rather in that dependency and hope they
place in another, tried-and-true faith in the
healing powers of modern medicine and
medical technology to offer their frail
ebbing senses renewal at the very least
a kind of bridging loan enhancing failing
faculties; eyesight, hearing, ambulation
minds, a temporary reprieve before that
inevitable finality of surrender. The waiting
room is crowded as they silently await
opportunity for that vital consultation with
the high priest of medical miracles. The
hospital is charged with the energy of
expectation as its personnel feverishly
tend to the halt, the lame, the blind, the
fearful, the aged and the aging. Those with
residual sight avert their eyes from the
spectacle of specimens whose condition
is far advanced of their own and those
without hearing are spared the sighs, groans
and complaints of those restlessly awaiting
results. Among them men clad in dragging
shorts and sandals others clinging to the
dignity of apparel able to stand the scrutiny
of their home mirrors. Women, ample flesh
bursting at the seams of their casual wear.
The morbidly obese, the wheelchair bound
the elderly confused and accompanied find
little solace in the frenetic atmosphere
around them, their own minds fixated on
solutions extending, improving their lives
as they approach the finality of its end.
Overcoming Fate
Make no mistake, this is not one of those
grotesque public attractions of curiosity at
the misfortune of others when people gather
to gawk and comment, removed emotionally
from the scene they witness as gladiators
facing death defiantly captured the public
imagination in a spectacle absent pity or
remorse. This event has pitched peoples' eyes
on a natural entrapment of children pitting
pitiless nature against the lives of the young
and defenceless who seeking adventure found
limitless lethal threats to their very existence.
Where the human obscenity of detachment
of emotional care for others reveals that very
inhumane aspect of our intimate natures, on
this dread occasion hearts and minds become
fixated on a drama whose outcome cannot be
foreseen but for the imagination propelling
thoughts toward a torturous, lingering death.
Rescue teams and experts in cave diving
along with medical personnel have congregated
all eager to contribute to an effort urged by
prayers to successfully bring a group of
vulnerably unfortunate boys and their leader
out of the maws of impending disaster. Those
hopes and those plans and their execution have
gripped the public in a pure inhalation of
mass focus on extricating the innocent from
capricious nature's oblivious deadly design.
Sundered, Accursed
There is nothing quite like it ... for polarizing
perturbation between otherwise reasonable
people, not even critical life issues like
love, finances and the finality of it all in
death carries the potential for cinders to
remain in relationships of long duration
and close intimacy to catch afire the flames
of anger and dissent finalizing division as
nothing else can do aside from emotional
reservations of deep critical separation in
religion and politics. Woe betide the fate of
any who question the depth of logic or lack
thereof of those who have committed to a
perspective whose any deviation creates a
schism of conviction and the doubter comes
instantly due for an introduction to the kind
of molten-metal fiery tirades worthy of a
volcanic eruption, spewing forth accusations
and threats fuming with violence and epic
proportions of vitriolic spleen of accusations
whose throbbing pain can never be retracted
distancing one forever from a relationship
once considered firmly set in good faith and
trust, consigning mutual respect to oblivion.
Eternally Searching
The heat sends its sizzling humid haze
shimmering through city streets and
the confines of the forest alike yet it
is those concrete deforested places
where humans live and work and
think of themselves as fortunate to
have escaped the past when their lives
carried meaning in fending for themselves
in natural surroundings. In the haven they
have manipulated the environment to
achieve where there is little escape from
the searing, baking heat but in concrete
buildings with their unnatural cooling
enabling moist air to carry bacterial
infections to pass disease and illness
whereas in the forest the bountiful mass
of vegetation cleanses the air while the
vast overhead canopy of fresh green
filters the heat and the fingers of the sun
discretely light the colourful landscape
and the wind ruffles the foliage, cooling
the atmosphere so the animals that live
there thrive in temporary inconvenience
of each season's excess emerging to
carry on their natural existence unlike
humankind dissatisfied, disquieted and
forever searching for life's meaning.
Nature's Dramas
No, this was not at all the brisk, cooling
wind whose presence alleviated the crushing
heat and humidity of the past three days but
rather the hoarse and heated breath of a mythic
monster raging through the atmosphere
bending trees beneath the demon force of its
rage, and nor was this the benevolent crystalline
heavenly-blue of the great amphitheatre of
the sky showcasing the splendour of a summer
sun heating the atmosphere well beyond the
capacity of living things to endure, for a dark
and distant distant cloud formation hastened
by the tornado-quality of the bellowing wind
swiftly brought night to the sky as drumrolls
of thunder warned of the imminent approach
of a weather change, charged by bright streaks
of lightning slicing the vaporous material dense
with rain. Fascinatingly sinister its approach
the very air taut with suspense in the deeply
entrenched odour of this weather phenomenon
identifying its violent nature. Objects lifted into
the air to fly aimlessly about as though insensate
things temporarily possessed the quality of
fear. And when the raging force of the rain
struck, a sound like pistons clattered on the
landscape below, a deluge to briefly lift the
searing heat broiling the environment, as heavy
raindrops sizzled and fizzled drenching all.
Heat Wave
The assault is ferocious, the Earth itself
plunged into a universal heat-storm of
such broad proportions and steaming
depth not only do animals slaver for surcease
so too does vegetation in forest and garden
assailed by the overpowering sensation of
plunging into a fiery oven, bare wisps of
wind merely shifting the flames of heat
in an indiscernible mimicry of relief, the
cruel mockery exacerbating the trap that
nature has devised in her never-ending game
of launching surprises on an unwary audience.
It is as though nature convinced the great
Sahara to surrender a portion of its hellish
and inexhaustible store of torrid excess
as sensate creatures fly, crawl, slither and
march in search of moderation, their very
survival dependent on escaping the flaming
torch that their environment has become in a
hostile-to-endurance and life itself appearance
of a climate suddenly transitioned to reflect
the heat-explosive surface of the sun that
very gaseous star endowing us with life.
