That Peerless Stage

The timeless, silent struggle to
prevail when dawn appears to shuffle 
dark night off the stage of the waking
world, like an ageing actor insisting
on yet another !encore! bow to his
pantomiming admirers, was solved
this morning to the satisfaction of
neither of the principal players of the
drama, as the sun struggled in vain
to penetrate an enveloping ice fog
hanging mysteriously on the atmosphere,
sending icily dripping fingers of sparkly
hoar frost to coat each twig and branch
of every shrub and tree sitting upon the
voluminous billowing snowpack on
the ground below. The world transformed
from the opaque black trance of a
star-stippled night to the exquisite magic
of an ice-crystal-infused ephemeral 
fog with its countless fairy-light sources
obscuring reality and presenting a
staged choreography of winter's prized 
luminous display; a stage setting no other 
impresario of delightfully imaginative creation 
could possibly strive in hope to emulate.

Neighbours

Years ago the huge old pine
resident at the bottom of the
hill just before the land dips further
to bank an old ravine creek, had a
resident of its own, a scolding red
squirrel badgering all passers-by,
but now long gone. Its habitation
came into the possession of a
wild bee colony which had no 
need to warn off trespassers. They
too are now gone and in their
place a pair of small black squirrels
named Heckle and Jekyll by a 
local wag, assumed proprietary
status taking up residence over the
mean winter months, aloof and
entitled to their secure nest and
the mindful homage to their
resilience left daily in the old trunk's
cracks and crevices to see them
through to the following spring.

Still Life: Whippet & Man

They make a fetching pair
with their obvious zest for life,
their exuberance on the woodland
trails packed with newfallen snow,
on a cold, crisp, sunny afternoon,
he in snowshoes and her fine
shapely legs bare to the frigid air.
Both are ecstatic with the winter
landscape. They are young, lean
as whippets, and exceedingly engaged.
She whips through the snow-laden
trees happily abandoned to love
of life, traversing double the area
he manages, moving swiftly over
the puffy snow. Among the birds that
flit through the trees, a tiny kinglet
stops to observe them. The wind
looses snow patches from their perch
on dark branches, showering a veil
of snow on the pair intent on claiming
their place in this world of light
and snow palaces, a publicist's dream
scenario, if nature needed one.

A Crystal Ballroom

It's a spectacularly mesmerizing
sight to watch in silence
as the night sky releases
countless specks of frozen
moisture, gleaming white and
phosphorescent, as though the
Universe has suddenly decided
it will no longer suspend
the infinity of stars that
brightly sequence its cold, dark
vastness. There they drift, in
an endless dance of lamplight-
enhanced glory outside my 
window as I prepare for bed. 
And when I awaken briefly in
time's wee hours, there they are,
still gently tumbling, casting an
otherwordly glow of warm peach
light to illuminate my bedroom, 
as in a dream. No dream, the 
morning affirms, as I, fresh from
sleep, view my world transformed
to a blazing crystal ballroom.

Ephemera

The uncertainty, she moans
with the impressively full
experience of her seventeen years,
is miserable. The self-assured young
woman who scoffs at her grandmother's
quaint but bothersome nudging
concerns and incessant reminders
which have never stopped the dark-haired
scholar from seeking advice from the
grey-haired lover of literature
now laments this waiting game
she incurred by studying which
centres of higher learning offered
the best academic courses in her chosen
field, guaranteeing future employment
and a satisfying life of goals achieved,
meticulously selecting minors and majors,
anxiously making application, unprepared
to live on the tenterhook of aspirations
in limbo. To the granddaughter's sigh
of exasperation, wishing to get on
with life, the grandmother reminds
how hers and her daughter's lives will
be diminished by the absence of the
aspiring scholar, studying far from home,
and they too must submit to a
longer-term agony of expectation.

Settling In

Cold, damp and ghastly grey,
the fog has made itself
comfortable for two days of
utter opacity settling over farms
and forests, towns, villages and
the city where night-time lights
pierce the noon-day's unsettling
gloom. Vehicles pass silently on
darkly-glazed highways whose
grassy medians begin to welcome
the frigid atmosphere transitioning
to sleet and snow, casting a brief
illuminating effect as light
standards bounce briefly bright
off the freshly flickering flakes.
Tiny stars briefly flaring then
dying an extinguished life in
this dank local micro-universe.
The burnt-charcoal clouds billowing
above and beyond admitting to no
escape when nature suddenly urges
an upper gale to nudge them aside
and the sun appears, a wan disk
searching release to scorch the fog
rising from the river beyond into
reluctant exile. And for one short
miraculous moment that splendid 
orb of gold gains traction and beams
its glory as darkness flees and a
flaming path of light paves its way
across the river. Gone as swiftly
as it appeared, the fog ferociously
returns to once again dominate
the winter-in-motion arras.

Evolving Tradition

Can it be so readily possible
to create the small drama of a culture
of dependent response on wild 
creatures that a tradition can ensue,
passed on and inherited through
some arcane osmosis of memory?
A wide forested area teeming
with birds and small furry animals
alert to the daily arrival of an
elderly couple dispensing and 
caching peanuts has developed a
woodland celebrity status, a 
devout following of creatures
clamouring for attention with
direct dispensing of edible treats,
and who are they, in response,
not to accede and bask in the
satisfaction achieved in contact
and exchange of pleasantries with
an alien planetary species not 
entirely unlike their very own?