Beloved

Here I am, dearly beloved
prepared to guide and welcome
you to the eighties
having arrived through the
            logic of birth
before you. Now you have
joined me, finally
             once again
caught up to me, my dear.
In 1949 when we first met
who might have imagined
this day would arrive?
               And here we are
you and me with our
memories shared and
cherished, together at this
venerable age, beloved.

The Meaning In Life

There is nothing quite like the
punishing effect of a brush with death
a morbid diagnosis of one's health
or the feeling of helplessness
suffusing one's consciousness at
the prospect of suddenly losing the
most cherished one in your life
without whose intimate presence
existence would lose its appeal altogether
to none-too-subtly alter one's
perspective on life. When all too
soon everything else is depleted in
value and a dim dark curtain of
despair descends damning your
view of life itself. With a reprieve
the very polarization of that vacuum
rises when, restored to the will to
endure and to live, each and every
element of daily life assumes a
newly-recognized importance and
nature itself manifests its glorious
magnificence in subtle hues of
belief and trust that as certain it is
new life emerges from seasonal
slumber, so too will it for you as 
your gratitude swells every sense
you possess and the concerns that
once bedevilled you become as
nothing reflecting the enduring love
and gratefulness once again shared.

Pacemaker

Tall, fit, extremely jovial by nature
this bearded man whose hair has
just the right tinge of grey at his
distinguished temples is the living
picture of aging gracefully. In his
mid-fifties he is quite the impressive
specimen of what all men should
aspire to, with not an ounce of fat
on his well-proportioned body
the very embodiment of pride in
self, leavened with a sardonic sense of
humour and a gracious temperament.
He has never neglected his own
responsibility not to burden the
universal health care system nor his
own future health; eating sensibly
and exercising that temple of his
body daily, accompanied by his large
good-natured dog on his quotidian
trysts with an urban forest, taking
delight in the physical challenge
while clearing his mind of the nuisance
details of everyday life. Why, he could
model for a photographic essay of
the good life! And in a week's time is
scheduled for a brief in-hospital
procedure when a defibrillator-heart
monitor is to be installed just above
his heart, below his robust left shoulder
where his sternum will be incised
... all the while planning to resume his
vigorous lifestyle say, a day or two
following that urgently required
intervention to extend his life-line.

 

The Sacred Profaned

In the human experience of
social and religious custom there
is little as venerated as is the
tradition of sanctuary in a house
of worship. To trespass and to 
threaten, much less commit violence
represents unspeakable sacrilege.
And while the abode of the
heavenly spirit was once viewed
as sacrosanct, a priest may now
have his throat slit from ear to
ear in the church sanctuary and
massacres of the faithful deep
in prayer have become frequent
fare in the news. Where firearms
risk disrupting the peace of prayer
deadly knives maintain the silence 
while unspeakable horror is writ
large on the face of victims 
as the blood of the innocents 
cries out to the heavens as they 
are slaughtered. But it is not the 
invasion of a temple of god that 
represents a sacrilege comparable
to the mass deaths executed in 
death camps dedicated to fascist
ideology, but the very sacredness
of life itself sacrificed to humankind's
incapacity to govern itself in
recognition of that sacred status.
From Iraq to Pakistan, Egypt to
America, France to Canada the
legions of those faithful to belief
that the Almighty craves the
sacrifice of human life, prosper.


 
 

When's Dinner?

Mine is a venerable though
not a particularly venerated
profession. And no, it is not
that one; I prefer to walk
on forest paths to being
a street-walker. I have
studied long and hard
first as a raw apprentice
aspiring to the status of
one who experience would
recognize as a mistress of
the craft of maintaining a
household with warmth
and comfort. And what
more comforting than the
capability to produce meals
whose aroma penetrate all
chambers of a home well
lived in, meals whose promise
of flavour supreme invites all
those whose senses are
exposed to its irresistible call
to converge with a single
query: When's dinner?

Cardiologist

His is an angular lean
and gaunt face
chiselled deeply with
the concern of one whose
academic training failed
to instill in him an 
emotional distance
from those his profession
serves. He is himself tall
and spare, body curved
in an ellipse of concentrated
attention to detail. He
must somehow infuse
into the obtuse mind
personal responsibility
for unthinking choices
imperiling their longevity
unwilling to submit
to the reality that 
patients willingly shirk
his admonitions secure
in their trust that his
expertise will save them
from their neglect to
self. His conflict is with
genes and age and faulted
lifestyle. Febrile in his
anxiety he ages prematurely
succumbing to nervous tics
suffocating under the
weight of his assumed
authority over death.

The New Reality

Quivering and quaking
in disbelief the
world staggers in the
new reality of a rank
world figure strutting
the global stage in
a gleeful portrayal of
unrestrained power
whose edicts impose
the impulse of an
egocentric idiocy
at large oblivious to
their effects as one
glorying in crude
ostentation has replaced
another whose impotence
to act reflected the
emperor whose
moral nudity left wide
a vacuum flooded
with the stark 
desolation of fear
and morbidity of moral
certainty rocks the
world so delicately out
of kilter, balancing from
bare utility to dysfunction.