Beware The Urban Forest

 

They are sagacious creatures, bold and

masters of strategy as befits those of

the animal kingdom's predators. Much

after all, depends on their practised

hunting habits, for in their ancestral

habitat they maintain a balance in the

presence of creatures they stalk. They

are also particularly adaptable, since

their once-wild geography was invaded

and with little interest in seeking refuge

from interlopers they have become

extremely skilled at slinking about in

the background making full use of the

same green spaces so valued by other

animal species including man. Human

habitation in close proximity to those

natural places where they can den and

procreate is of little account for they

are also adept at scavenging albeit not

preferentially. Their appearance is

similar to that of the dogs that people

walk in natural settings, oblivious to

the presence of untamed canids though

the dogs detect their presence alerting

themselves that long-distance cousins

are about, seldom imagining themselves

prey. Silently lurk the coyotes awaiting

opportunities; one offering the prospect

of play-time friendly dogs are eager to

indulge in, unaware that others unseen

follow behind fully prepared for action.

 

 

Where Are You?

 

 

They're there, simply there, though not
often seen when geography creates distance.
A vague acknowledgement that one has
sisters and brothers that time has
distanced. Absence makes memory
fainter, not necessarily fonder and little
time and emotion is harnessed to stray
thoughts of their lack of presence, despite
early shared familial experiences.

Yet, as we age and our lives move ever
yet tangentially, there arises the piquant
sadness of longing for something lost and
neglected. With age comes illness and
emotional deprivations; the realization
that we are alone, the inspiration to
re-discover lost siblings, the urge and
the spur to act, to reach out, to recover.

Shared blood and belonging now entreats
the elderly to reach back in time and
memory, to find that elusive comfort, the
mutual sympathy siblings harbour for one
another as they move inexorably toward
life's concluding stages. The instant grasping
of rapport re-visited, the tenderness, the
unspoken grief and gratitude, all there
awaiting that call to rescind distance
and emotional wavering of uncertainty.

There is much to say, to express, to
commiserate with, to update and to pledge
for the future. To casually, carelessly lose
grasp of those binding ties an error in
judgement reflecting bereft values and a life
too concerned with surface issues of scant
moment. To restore the loss requires a
simple resolution: I am here, where are you?
Please, meet me half way to our future. 

 

 

National Dilemmas

 

  Photograph: Sombo Sombo/Alamy

In poverty-stricken countries of the world

 

which we may no longer refer to as Third World 

 
countries but rather make full use of the

 
euphemism 'emerging economies', there is one

 
inexhaustible natural resource the envy of 

 
First World economic nations; the growth

 
steady and reliable, of their populations where 

 
the natural increase grows and grows despite

 
privation, food scarcity, joblessness and lack 

 
of medical care and the unfortunate loss of life

 
accompanying those lacks. In those countries 

 
governed either by incompetents or a hierarchy

 
of privileged elites for whom nothing of concrete

 
value lacks, the great unwashed for whom

 
sanitation, potable water, basic foodstuffs, power

 
and health care remain beyond imagination it's 

 
live or perish as fortune rolls her dice, and  hope

 
is lost. Yet wealthy nations grapple with their

 
confounding statistics that emphasize population

 
replacement expectations remain mysteriously

 
misplaced for as the aged die, fewer are born to 

 
replace them. This, even as administrations enact

 
legislation and expend treasury to enhance

 
the prospect of child-bearing, offering measures

 
inconceivable to those others, even while

 
residents of wealthy nations sneer at their

 
subsidies, the child care provisions, the health

 
care, the paid parental leave, as insufficient

 
in depth and quantity as a persuasive gambit.

 

 

Settling Into Winter

 

Wickedly bad tempered of late
she has sent one of her acolytes
to vent his ill tempest upon us
simply to remind, lest we forget
what forces they are that obey
Nature, corresponding to our
frail-minded clinging to puny
humankind's feeble management.

That ill wind, in intense
intercourse with a tempestuously
plunging atmosphere, and a
side dalliance with those
battered, bruised clouds venting
vapour over the land
has us cringing in paroxysms
of mortal distaste.

Trees surrender to naked despair.
Fish dive deep and anxiously hover.
Birds make frantic haste
to leave this familiar space.
While insects burrow deep
to wait out the annual tantrum.

Creatures of the forest gather
what they may to make
themselves scarce as the
landscape inexorably alters. We
grimace at the discomfort of
increasing displays of distemper.

Cringe before her directed onslaughts
of frigid air, wild wind, icy sleet, rain
and snow. Like other animals
we wait out the angry funk.
Awaiting opportunity to resume
the ease of changeable
Nature's goodly graces. 

 

 

Unquestioned Faith

 

William Blake

What a conundrum it is that the human psyche

finds no rest within its spirit in the absence of

the recognition of faith in a spiritual and heavenly

instructor whose divine guidance resonates in 

the human soul with gratitude that such an

all-powerful spirit, one whose nature it is to 

permit the existence of all that is and to grant

humanity exceptional stewardship of all

creation as the centre of the universal being

of all that is and will ever be, favoured as they

are with the instruction to worship none other

for all are false posing as prophets claiming

kinship with the almighty one, of whom there

is none other. Peace and loving kindness the 

primary observation of this tender god in whose 

name and thunderously pious injunctions to

follow and bear witness bringing others to his 

celestial knee, in the process striking the terror 

of anger in no wise suppressed should human 

actions displease the spirit in whose name peace

and loving kindness is proffered to all, even the

misguided, choosing to abstain from serving 

god's will, who for their unfortunate choice must 

vacate life, for what the holy spirit has created

that same spirit can uncreate, with the avid

helpfulness of those of unquestioned verities.

 

 

Mistress of the Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardens, muted of colour
form, texture, fragrance
are now a collapsed
architecture, delighting us
no longer as fall deepens
into garden-bleak winter.

Gone the thriving, brilliant
choreography, the boundless
exuberance of bulbs and tubers
bursting into flower, the shrubs
and fruit trees showering petals
transformed into luscious fruit.

The garden now is pallid
exhausted, its summer audition
long past, the chorus of blooms
extinguished, no encores as the
final departure of leafy canopy
has descended echoing dismay.

The curtain is prepared now to fall.
The last bow and curtsy executed
as nature asserts sovereignty.
Casually deflects assumptions our
efforts reflected ownership
of carefully plotted, nurtured
triumphant gardenscapes.

There is no perpetuity here, merely
the gardener's eccentricity in believing
she exerted control over the order of
her gardening efforts. A brief, illusory
delusion, a borrowed vision, a hallowed
trust now returned to nature
and winter's ascendancy.

 

Arming The Faithful

 

In a world obsessed with the wonders

of high tech, give some thought to the

preoccupation of Islam's ventures in faith

introducing to the world the advances

that can be made in asymmetrical

warfare with the use of low-tech and

no-tech, simply ingeniously using tools

at hand, beginning with tasking the devout

to prove the strength of their faith in jihad

with the ultimate sacrifice exalted in

the noble robes of martyrdom and heroism

to which end suicide vests become the

explosive devices of first choice followed

in haste by the simple medium of

improvised explosive devices as an

example, and for truly maximum impact

in the efficacy of holy wars astutely

diverting passenger jets as missiles 

aiming to strike symbolic high-rise 

edifices housing thousands of those

noncompliant non-believers as their just due

for insulting the Prophet. And during times

of high tension confronted by powerful

states whose enmity augers conventional

warfare their armaments well equipped

to extinguish the ambitions of conquest

full use of deadly missiles in planned

mass slaughter to send the world into

disbelief at the commission of war crimes

yet not seen as such by the perpetrators who

profess no responsibility for the carnage

and cast blame on those surreptitiously

assaulted by proxy militias on order

from none other than the sacred scripts

of a holy spirit whose disciples are legion.