The Puissant

 

An angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634

The Puissant

We have our admired role models whom 
it is our undeniable fate to attempt to 
understand and to emulate in striving to 
come to vexing terms with the meaning  of life. 
For scientists, it is Nature in her glorious
splendour and awesome power throughout the 
Universe. Omnipresent, indifferent, timeless, 
capricious. For the faithful who willingly 
suspend the realities of proof, it is a sublime, 
supreme deity, omniscient, forbidding, demanding 
and equally capricious, though not indifferent. 
That Spirit halted Abraham from the proof of 
faithful devotion in the sacrifice of his genetic
survival, urging upon the father of Isaac a ram,
much to the consternation of that poor beast, 
demonstrating God's selective compassion. 
Yet He also planned and executed the sacrifice 
of His only begotten son to prove his own faith 
in the devotion of the mass of humankind. Then 
again, did the Lord assume to offer an even more
puzzling sacrifice, of Abraham's heirs, in their 
incalculable numbers, the flock especially selected 
to represent God's Chosen unto the craven world 
of worshippers, trembling before a world overtaken 
by Satan's spawn. The God of goodness, hope 
and charity setting before humankind an object 
lesson in hubris, puissance and majesty before
whom all must quiver and quaver, as upon 
confronting a massive clash of ill-fated heavenly 
bodies, erupting in the flux and fiery ending of 
absolute destruction, an atomic Holocaust.

 

The Mirage of Ice-Fog

In the near distance, a mist of 
white gauze demarcates the road 
from the inner confines of the deeply 
wooded ravine we approach. The 
ravine absorbs our descent into its 
depths, envelopes us in its mystique; 
guests within its white  interior, the 
monochrome of snow and fog 
interrupted by the dark standards of 
tree trunks coated with glare ice, 
descended from the sky through the 
night hours transforming the winter 
wonderland to a glittering ice palace.

Deep In Winter

Within the renewed splendour of a 
woodland landscape generously sifted 
deep in the down of lighter-than-feathery
snow, we trudge along trails barely to
be detected, kicking up and plowing
through its densely unobliging passage.
Like running at snails pace through a
sandy beach, panted an exhausted man
attempting to keep pace with his two
rapturous dogs. His youth and vigour 
have found their demoralized match in
this frozen landscape of conifers sculpted
of snow and ice, a frozen vista of white
magnificence, overlaid with ephemeral
veils of fine silvery-white skeins as a
sharp wind blasts the heaped and humped
spires and boughs of their groaning burdens.
We clump our way to slow-motion ascents,
the dry snow underfoot cascading into
micro avalanches returning us to the
slope's base to try again. The cold that
seeps its deadly malice into the layers
we have swaddled ourselves within
retreats on the laboured ascent, returns
with a debilitating frigidity on the
wind-blasted heights as we take the full
measure of deep winter's squatting presence.

Accerima Proximorum Odia

Because you have always claimed
I have never earned your respect, you
don't have to believe me, go and study 
Sun Tzu, look up Transactional Analysis,
dig for a definition of spite, intransigence,
vindictiveness; these are not benign
characteristics, my dear. They will all
come back to haunt you all your life.
Not for nothing has it been observed that 
those who cut off their nose to spite
their face are sadly diminished by the
effort. There are glances of hatred that
stab and raise no cry of murder, observed
George Eliot. The dissonance of your
friable, frenetic emotions are not unique,
you see, but they are appalling. Your
amazing vitriol, does it not discomfort
even you, with the frenzied depth of
its acid reflux? Those who go heedlessly
through life burning bridges will find
themselves marooned on a bleak,
deserted island companionless, embittered
and all expertly accomplished with that
stinging malevolent reproach designed
to alienate and distance. The reward of
a hateful mind is a cursedly forlorn abyss.

Hatred - ah yes, but what are little hates
But little deaths that wander on and on.
Walter Greenough, The Vision

Reflection

We fondle our past
with fingers
of fond memory
echoing regret
at time's  
swift passing.

You recall me
soft and round
waiting and eager
that element of danger
of quick discovery
and swift withdrawal
but always there
waiting

    and you
see in me still
that other
    the one who
lingers back there
dark-haired and nubile
and you smile

     here

I am, Love
don't you see me?
This pale reflection
refracting the
purity of youth
is only time
wrinkling the present.

1980 published in Origins

The Perfectionist

The craftsman is that most viscerally
puzzled of creatures, humble before
his craft, given to the construct and
devotion of his creations to focus
entirely on perfection achieved in
his dreams, but never quite fulfilled.
The goal eludes his fecund, creative
mind, his exquisitely nimble fingers
despite his intimacy with a muse
that never leaves his side, tantalizing
with her sweet goading promises,
urging his meticulously laid designs
to fulfillment. Each agonizingly
completed project appears to him
an insipid reflection of the gem
whose brilliance he took such care 
in fashioning. It seems to him as
though his past is littered with the
detritus of promise gone awry. He
despairs that his errant art will ever
reach a pinnacle of achievement. It
is as though he prides himself as
the meticulous creator of all he observes,
witnessing birth, decay and death.

Αιολος

Clearly, primeval Aeolus is
in the foulest of his many
irascible moods. It is his
ill-tempered winds that bode
no good for man nor beast
exposed to their powerfully
malicious black moods. From
the frozen, snow-swept wastes
of scintillating and deadly
Antarctica whose ice and
frozen depths make common
cause with wretched winds,
to the boreal forests, wide prairies
and cities of Canada, winter's
grip has been clamped tight.
Fierce winds creeping deadly
daggers of death upon the
unprepared and so very
profoundly unfortunate.