Seasonal Wildfires

They arrive in over-heated combustion
when circumstances are just so; tinder-dry
forests, scarcity of rainfall, vigorous
hot winds and malevolence also plays
a role when aspiring pyromaniacs
lust to view the thrill of devouring flames
consume all in their way, from inanimate
to animate, animals madly dashing to
hoped-for-safety and forests withering
from life to blackened death. Towns and
villages, urban and suburban homes and
civic buildings erupt in flames even as
firefighters risk their lives in a comradeship
of death-defying covenants, placing them
within the belly of the beast to outwit
and out-manoeuvre the fire's tempestuous
madness in its all-consuming hunger to
destroy all it can humble and level and
blacken, finding its home beneath the
devastation to simmer deep within the
earth, to rest awhile awaiting other such
grand opportunities to ungratefully lay
waste to all its mistress, nature, has devised. 
But wildfires too are nature's elements of
dominion and control. She entertains herself
with fall rehearsals in the heavens above
harmlessly displaying her awesome theatricals
like an expert fire-monger teaching her servants 
immaculate procedures for maximum effect. 

Winter Hiatus

Did I neglect to render you the full due
of admiring attention when your splendid
blooms shared sublime colour in the garden?
You peonies and columbines, periwinkles
and bleeding hearts, roses, lilies and phlox
in a glory of evanescent shades brilliantly
lighting my life, did I fail to fully appreciate
your role in fulfilling my need for such
beauty to confront my eyes and gladden
my soul? Did I not exclaim with such
unalloyed pleasure whenever my glance 
turned your way at the delicacy of your 
petals, your divine fragrance, the spectacle 
you presented of how the Garden of Eden 
must have appeared to those who left it 
with such sorrowful regret? We have
experienced this wrenching separation
before and each time you have dutifully
returned, but in the hiatus of your absence
my memory fails me whenever I make
the frequent effort to command its mystic
powers to bring to me the exquisite
sensuality of your grace, your scintillating
presence, the sensations your presence
evokes within the deepest chambers of 
my being, in the hallowed presence of  
the mistress of existence, my garden muse.

Too Young To Love

We knew of a certainty in those
years when we danced to the 50s
song that was written especially for us
that they were wrong, we did know the
meaning of love and it was what our
minds and our bodies told us, that we
were indivisible. We discovered one
another and understood that our 
intersected lives had indisputably
merged. He was mine forever and I
was his 'till the end of time. The song
begins with the plaint They tried to 
tell us we're too young ... and ends
with the hopeful And yet some day
they may recall/We were not too young
at all. Not to be, as through a natural
course of events, even while kind
Providence blessed our union on and
on and on ... nature declared their time
had elapsed, and they are in no position 
now to humbly acknowledge their error.

 

Lost and Found

A late-season impulse commitment
soon forgotten in the tumult of a family
misadventure if heart surgery can be
described in that gentle way. The discovery
months later of the tuber package set aside
and overlooked then inadvertently happened
upon, the package of 25 blue poppy anemones.
Though it is early December the garden beds
are not yet fully frozen and the temperature
has risen above freezing, so spade in hand
and determination to finish what I never
started propelling the adventure, the
tubers were planted, one by one; imagine 
the pleasant surprise of these delicate
flowers greeting us as spring banishes
winter; a gift from the Netherlands to
frozen northern-latitude Canada. My
garden-gloved hands are cold but not that
cold to prevent me from persevering, digging
that spade deep into the soil, sodden from
days of blowing snow and freezing rain.
The effort well worth the anticipated pleasure
of winter days eased by the thought of these
fragile beauties erupting from the freed
soil to gladden our winter-weary eyes.

The Trapper's Hat

It bristles as though with a life of
its own, as I imagine it and the little
dog appears to sense. It is an old
trapper's hat, lined with fur, the
ultimate protection against cold, sleet
and wind. Its design is timeless and
so too is its utility, but it is not the
practicality of the cap that has ensnared
his attention, he is quite simply smitten
with it, hanging on its peg beside the
door, barking and demanding that it
be returned to its place of accessibility
for a small, very small dog. It is not
as though he is in dire need of
companionship, for his twin sister
who exhibits none of hispeculiar
desire for the hat is his playmate and
constant companion. Nothing will
suffice but to haul the furred presence
from its unattainable height and 
present it to him to sniff, gently grasp
to deposit on the floor in a place of
honour for the creature it once was.

Incurable

There are vast legions among us
afflicted with the conceit of vanity
and in response to their incoherent
desire to become/remain/return to
youth and beauty the response offering
a solution is there with the avuncular
hubris of eager demi-gods prepared to
match conceit with deserved deceit. In 
a  desperate bid to remain visually
desirable, dewy-young and beautiful
the vulnerable flock to the salons of
plastic surgeons whose willingness to
serve those for whom no price is too
steep to trade for rejuvenation into
the cult of the young, the lithe and 
the time-untouched remains boundless
with confidence and treacly assurances.
Not for them, who invest their purpose
in life to remain enticingly smooth
skinned and winsome, the symptoms
of fearful aging, the creased brow and
the mirth-creased mouth betraying a
life well lived. And those betraying
the healing profession expand their
horizons to entice the still-young with
flawlessly smooth faces of angelic
complexion to become 'proactive'
investing in costly treatments well
before the aging process arrives, to
ensure it never will. Some appear to 
onlookers to have arrested time by
freezing expression while others have
the unmitigated misfortune to present as
some kind of chimera resembling neither
youth nor agedness but a sad caricature.

The Peaceable Kingdom

Was there ever such a fabled place?
Might there ever arise a time and a place
when and where the lion lies down with the
lamb? It is a vision of everlasting hope
that has humbled and haunted humankind
ever since the primitive mind sparked 
thought that led imagination to arise that
survival's instinct to destroy anything or
anyone shielding the grasp from obtaining
advantage might be tempered by an
emerging conscience dictating toward
amicability beyond instinct and tribe.
The human heart reacts in swift sympathy
to the perceived plight of a vulnerable
and helpless young animal. Shrinking in
fear and distaste at the red in tooth and
claw reality nature imbues her creatures 
with. Yet it remains the human creature
whose fearsome passions of violent rage
shrink the mind and threaten the peace.
From pre-historical times to the Biblical era
to the present, the dreaded loathsomeness
of fratricide, matricide, patricide and deicide
have haunted the poetic legendary tales of
human moral depravity. We fear the savagery
of wild, untamed beasts of the forest and
jungle, when all the while humans steeped
in the civility of the modern world are
the creatures whose predation on one 
another present the true horror of existence.