Oh What a Tangled Web

What could be more seriously 
threatening to a young man's 
future than suspicion leading to 
surveillance enabling authorities 
to gather enough evidence to 
warrant arrest on charges of 
conspiracy to commit acts of 
terrorism within the country
where he was born and raised
and in testifying in his own defence
while claiming innocence, agrees
that he visited the home of a
convicted terrorist to give comfort
to the family infamous for their
support of religiously ideological
attacks of bloody violence against
the corrupt, degraded values of
the democratic West. Oh, what a
web they weave when first they
practise to deceive and murder.

The Master Craftsman

When he bends his head
in painstaking devotion
to his artisanal craft
of precision design in
carefully applying his skill
to carving a delicate
silhouette of a lovely
young woman for the face
of a prized cameo, does
his preoccupied mind ever
wander to the thought of
it nestling in the tender
fresh pulsing throat of its
living counterpart, and
would the fount of such
precious jewels find grave
consternation in the reality
of his handiwork finding
haven at the carefully hidden
throat of an elderly woman
prizing his gem for reminding
her of the youth and beauty
that once were hers?

Flux

Butterflies weave
their flight
through cornstalks
ripening in the
afternoon sun.

Robins stalk the meadow
stringing out
worms, gasping
on the surface
of last night's rain.

A woolybear
winds its slow way
over a gravel road,
presaging a
hard winter.

The driver 
of the car does not see
the mash he has
left behind,
only smells
the lingering odour
of skunk.

The gore reflects
the russet
of the maples.

 

Arrested

Nothing in the frozen landscape
moves, other than a stubbornly
immature hornbeam's transparent
dry autumn leaves hanging on, a
small defiance of pale brown in a
landscape drowned in white
alongside the stark, dark trunks
of winter-nuded trees, urged to
restlessness by an impish breeze.

The forest has been frozen in an
attitude of suspended activity, as
though a chamber darkened when a
light was switched off, winter
warning the sun and warmth to
make themselves scarce. And so,
the intimidated forest shorn of its

green canopy, awaits the signal of
mild days opposing frigid nights
when it will respond sending sap to
its heights from storage in nether
regions. Apprehended in surprise
when surly winter sent another spasm
of snowy aspiration-stifling renewal.

The Last of Her Line

The last of her line of warrior queens
Penthesilea spurred the flagging Trojans
to combat with brave words and Priam had
faith until the oracle showed him her
limp form on a funeral pyre.

But the fleeting glory of the Amazon
inspired the armies of Troy, dispirited
by nine years of encirclement, by Hector's
death and they followed her wild mare to

the battlefield and fought as they never
had before, lancing and axing the Greeks,
driving them back to the beached ships
with newfound fury, their wild warcries

crowning the seagulls' wails. Blood
gored the plains of Ilium and heads rolled
like stones on the breach of Achaean
      offence
until Achilles, still mourning Patroclus

joined the battle to confront the warrior
woman. The air thundered with battle
the cries of the dying, the speared, the
gutted. Facing each other, the half god

the Amazon each scented victory. Ah,
Penthesilea's spear glanced off dread
Achilles' shield, his greave and in his
turn Chiron's pupil pierced the warrior

woman through her breast, penetrating
the horse to stick her body like meat
upon a spit. Plucking the helm from her
head, Achilles looked with rage on the

dead beauty of the woman whose courage
matched his and he lusted helplessly
for those slack limbs to entwine his
that dead mouth to catch his, that gone

breath to sweeten his life. There is
no victory in conquering
                  there is no glory!
he cried in anguish and tried to die.

The Silent Forest

It is exquisitely, perfectly still,
this landscape, like an utterly
captivating painting of a forest
deep, deep in winter slumber.
So quietly still there is no sound,
nothing moves, though this is a
living landscape. Ambient sound
of huddled wildlife stilled,
hushed by the lavish layers
of snow that storms have ladled
deep into the woods, luxuriating
in the plushy depths on the forest
floor, covering all surfaces, to
the narrow needles of pine,
spruce, fir and hemlock and the
frozen creekbed, stilled in ice.
Wait! a wisp of wind has unravelled
a diaphanous veil of snow from an
over-laden branch, in a lazy, gauzy
tumble below. Even the sun is
muted, its brilliance transformed
to a hazily dazzling diamond of
huge dimensions suspended in the 
silvery white cover of the sky,
an ephemeral vision of winter.

Our Peaceable Kingdom

A peaceable kingdom of nature's
modest creatures is a reality
where foragers randomly pass
by one another in their timeless
hunt for the foods that are species
specific, unattractive to their
competitors in the daily trials
of survival. Trials that must of
necessity include a healthy 
awareness of the stealthy and
deadly approach of predators feeding
down the raw and bloody food chain.
But on our porch, the winter
feeding station that attracts local
small furred creatures and birds
on the fly from the boreal forest
joining the locals, manners of civility
prevail, the squirrels take their
turn from the tiny red, the bushy
grey and the pedestrian black, while
chickadees and juncos flit nervously
to their share, the cardinals await
their turn and the rabbit appears when
all others have finally departed. 
Leaving we spectators at peace
with the admirable vision of the
accommodation of need and the
natural delicacy of sharing.