by H.C. Klingman
Born on separate continents,
fate’s magnet drew
us to common destiny,
to share rich experience,
and sublime discoveries
in old world cultures.
Mundanities scuttled,
we enjoyed new lives
assayed for existential gold.
In immigrant alleys we,
big city smart-alecs,
ripened to a strong America
that took us, still striplings,
to combat alien evil.
And we, almost-warriors,
lived near-death horrors,
smarting wounds suffered
for tin medals soon
put aside to prepare
for postwar dreams;
jobs, family, success.
But first, GI Bill creds
gave keen wannabees,
a trampoline bounce
to higher rungs
of career ladders.
Climbing nimbly, we left
for new contests abroad,
this time as Praetorians
of American commerce;
to Europe where our stars met
in Zurich’s Alpine City.
Allemanic and Hibernian
gestalts are different forms
but ours touched
and became fellowship,
bonding warmly
over shared interests
and stimulating talk,
probing, revealing,
challenging, never dull.
Outgrowing heritage,
we cracked the
old ancestral molds
and lived America’s dream. Abroad.
We reigned as Princes
of merit, not of blood,
with emoluments
and perks unknown
to stateside guys
who thought we toiled
in hardship’s garden, while
they thrived on native soil.
(Fools! We were in Paradise.)
We two. Friends.
Bulls of the same herd
tossing our horns
to show our stuff… let
‘em see all’s well
with us on guard.
Sleek and proud,
we snorted warnings
when envious poachers
eyed our turf.
Men of equal mind
and power will compete,
and we two (lefties),
jousting in mock combat,
played games with
verve and gusto,
hailing victories
and life’s milestones
with memorable vintages,
rare elixirs consecrated
by Gallic sun,
our souls in communion
with holy Cortons,
or Chambertins, still
lingering on palate’s memory
as a shameless symbol
of opulence past..
Partners in expatriate civics
and community causes.
We jogged, golfed,
played chess and cards,
with intensity, bonding
with pride and delight.
Much still remains
of those days and months,
even as the glorious tapestry
of our prime years fades.
Back then, fine soirees,
sparkling nights with
you and Doris hosting,
creating pleasure
at your hillside villa,
seducing us with epicurean
secrets of food and drink.
Convivial times as
we vacationed together
in laughter and ease
living the high station
of imported royalty.
Our ups and downs
a male thing
from perceived challenges;
proud egos magnifying
faint threats.
even those, just echoes
of pawing hooves,
virile reflexes
marking territory;
the struggle for
the strong “I” of youth.
That came and went,
but so much survived;
affection, admiration,
So, with good will abounding,
we converge again as two ships,
retired from long voyages abroad.
riding calmy in safe anchorage.
Our rites of passage, though
indelibly logged in our minds, fade slowly
in history. We were at the helm during rough seas and smooth sailing, and
surrendered command, and its privileges
with much regret, to begin life anew.
We navigated to our home port,
enriched by journeys into other worlds.
Now, in common space, no longer urged
to exalt our deeds, carrying the old mantle,
renewed friendship is celebrated
by honoring shared ideas,
and thoughts annealed
by worldly wisdom,
recalling lives finely lived
in the best of times.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Metamorphosis
H.C. Klingman
Before my face began breaking out I was just a kid, putting on whatever clothes Mom set out for me in the morning. After a breakfast of cocoa and pastry, feeling slightly nauseous, eyes not entirely clear of sleep, I stumbled along to PS 82 in my sneakers, lunch and books slung over my shoulder. Sometimes I smuggled my peashooter or a comic book to class. I had no master plan. Life was mostly random, all about me.
There was a general awareness of having to be on time, but there was sightseeing along the way. At Sturm’s Candy Shop I ogled sweets that I had no pennies for. There was a pond en-route, where you could cut a willow switch to snap at cats or girls legs to make them jump. You could make a whistle from a willow branch.
Sometimes you could catch a small frog there, and take it to class, but mostly they died in the pocket of your jacket. Throwing stones or blowing dandelion parachutes were other diversions. In the autumn we picked cattails that you could soak in gasoline to make torches. I stuffed my pockets full of horse chestnuts.
I barely paid attention in class, absent-mindedly doing whatever the teacher asked, awaiting the school bell to release me to the playground. The swings and teeter-totters were for kids from the lower grades. Eighth graders like me played ball games.
Sometimes I walked home with other boys who told me of weird goings on at home, secrets about their sisters, or what they ate for dinner. Everybody was different. One guy’s mother visited a medium, another went to daily Mass.
There were music lessons, but I was thinking about outside games as I read notes and practiced finger exercises. It seems wherever I was or whatever I was doing, I always wanted to be somewhere else.
I didn’t even have peach fuzz on my cheeks in the 8th grade. I was only twelve. Some of the other boys were already shaving; you could see how hairy they were in the showers after gym. But my face was still unblemished, and I was invited to a round of graduation parties. The girls at those parties were a little more advanced than me, and when they suggested playing “post office,” I opted out. No smooching for me.
Those days of innocence ended in high school. Hormones raged, girls suddenly seemed different, and a plague of pimples appeared out of nowhere, speckling my face. My voice became a cracked yodel and strange pains were felt in armpits and groin. “Growing pains” said Mom. There was adolescent insecurity. Only later did I learn that puberty presaged biological destiny, programmed into us by evolution.
Nature’s timing couldn’t be worse. Just about the time you cultivate interest in the world, you become disfigured with all kinds of skin eruptions. People look away. You suffer the taunts of your little brother, and your parents scold you for picking at your face. Plucking and squeezing become spasmodic. You feel unclean, and no amount of scrubbing or salves brings relief. When company comes you want to hide.
It seems to go on for ages, but eventually skin clears and the shame lifts. Facial hair flourishes and the voice stabilizes. Secondary sex characteristics announce your new role. You become a bold performer in early fertility rituals where girls are to be pleased, no longer teased. A threshold is reached as a freshfaced teenager emerges from his cocoon searching for identity, confronted by gender questions. He becomes aware of uncertainties involved in the mating process. Randomness gives way to purpose. Choices have to be made.
That is when the real problems begin.
Before my face began breaking out I was just a kid, putting on whatever clothes Mom set out for me in the morning. After a breakfast of cocoa and pastry, feeling slightly nauseous, eyes not entirely clear of sleep, I stumbled along to PS 82 in my sneakers, lunch and books slung over my shoulder. Sometimes I smuggled my peashooter or a comic book to class. I had no master plan. Life was mostly random, all about me.
There was a general awareness of having to be on time, but there was sightseeing along the way. At Sturm’s Candy Shop I ogled sweets that I had no pennies for. There was a pond en-route, where you could cut a willow switch to snap at cats or girls legs to make them jump. You could make a whistle from a willow branch.
Sometimes you could catch a small frog there, and take it to class, but mostly they died in the pocket of your jacket. Throwing stones or blowing dandelion parachutes were other diversions. In the autumn we picked cattails that you could soak in gasoline to make torches. I stuffed my pockets full of horse chestnuts.
I barely paid attention in class, absent-mindedly doing whatever the teacher asked, awaiting the school bell to release me to the playground. The swings and teeter-totters were for kids from the lower grades. Eighth graders like me played ball games.
Sometimes I walked home with other boys who told me of weird goings on at home, secrets about their sisters, or what they ate for dinner. Everybody was different. One guy’s mother visited a medium, another went to daily Mass.
There were music lessons, but I was thinking about outside games as I read notes and practiced finger exercises. It seems wherever I was or whatever I was doing, I always wanted to be somewhere else.
I didn’t even have peach fuzz on my cheeks in the 8th grade. I was only twelve. Some of the other boys were already shaving; you could see how hairy they were in the showers after gym. But my face was still unblemished, and I was invited to a round of graduation parties. The girls at those parties were a little more advanced than me, and when they suggested playing “post office,” I opted out. No smooching for me.
Those days of innocence ended in high school. Hormones raged, girls suddenly seemed different, and a plague of pimples appeared out of nowhere, speckling my face. My voice became a cracked yodel and strange pains were felt in armpits and groin. “Growing pains” said Mom. There was adolescent insecurity. Only later did I learn that puberty presaged biological destiny, programmed into us by evolution.
Nature’s timing couldn’t be worse. Just about the time you cultivate interest in the world, you become disfigured with all kinds of skin eruptions. People look away. You suffer the taunts of your little brother, and your parents scold you for picking at your face. Plucking and squeezing become spasmodic. You feel unclean, and no amount of scrubbing or salves brings relief. When company comes you want to hide.
It seems to go on for ages, but eventually skin clears and the shame lifts. Facial hair flourishes and the voice stabilizes. Secondary sex characteristics announce your new role. You become a bold performer in early fertility rituals where girls are to be pleased, no longer teased. A threshold is reached as a freshfaced teenager emerges from his cocoon searching for identity, confronted by gender questions. He becomes aware of uncertainties involved in the mating process. Randomness gives way to purpose. Choices have to be made.
That is when the real problems begin.
DEATH BY FOOD
by H.C. Klingman
I stand at the bars of my cell, awaiting my special dinner. It is to be the Last Supper before my execution. In a splendid display of compassion, the warden said he absolutely guaranteed that my choice of food would be fulfilled. Then, and only then, will he strap me into “Old Sparky,” and pull the switch. I thought about it for a long time before selecting.
Now I may be excitable, but I’m not as bad as they said at the trial. And I know my food. There are some things you don’t mess with, like traditional recipes that have been unchanged for centuries. But in America, any unpardonable adulteration of food that violates gastronomic tradition is allowed because they believe in free speech.
Sure I bopped that chef at the Ucelli Pazzo. That stronzo deserved it for serving me a Saltimbocca a la Romana with spinach between the Prosciutto and the Scallopine. What a sacrilegious outrage. Even the lowliest kitchen goomba in Italy knows that it is Salvia that goes in there. Sage, sage, sage! But before you judge me, consider the details of my case honestly.
The Ucelli is not my favorite restaurant but I drop in every once in awhile. I know they get good veal, seldom found in America, where the natives are hooked on beef. So I ask the waiter if they can do me a nice Saltimbocca. He is Italian and says, “ Certo, ma shu.” Which means, “Certainly, why sure.” Basically you trust an Italian on food because eating is a rite more sacrosanct than prayer in church; a matter of personal pride and national integrity.
I forgot that Italians never say no, and that waiters are basically paid to sell food. (The tips are for delivering it.) My delight in the dish that is called “somersault in the mouth” was dashed with the first bite. “What the hell is this,” I thundered, pointing to spinach where the sage should be. The waiter knew danger when he saw it and took off for the kitchen with me in hot pursuit. I was stopped by the big chef, a stand-in for Primo Carnera. I called him a gugguzzo and accused him of high treason, of being Un-Italian, and told him he was even too fricken dumb to boil noodles, and his veal could go do somersaults up his culo. “Go back to being a bus-boy,” I jeered, and gave him both horns, the sign of the cornuto.
Then that maladetto went crazy. He swung at me with a meat cleaver so I picked up this pan of spinach and threw it in his face. Primo stumbled and fell backward hitting his head and he goes down for the full count. But it wasn’t the blow that did him in. The jerk died of a heart attack.
Greenbaum, my lawyer, pleaded self-defense, and accidental death. Judge O’Leary ruled homicide. Justice O’Malley confirmed on appeal. Sensitivity to the nuances of food culture cannot be expected from Irish judges. They struck down the Italian defense; that anyone who screws around with a Saltimbocca has committed a grave provocation, which permits a certain amount of agitated response. “Murder first,” they said, and Greenbaum went to the Governor for clemency. There was still no answer from the State House.
In the prison library I looked up the Law, and it says a 36 hour humanitarian stay of execution can be granted at the warden’s request. I had to play for extra time, so I told him my menu choice was Saltimbocca, made with sage, the real Italian way. I figure that would send him on a wild goose chase. The hot seat would stay cool a few hours more.
Now, down Death Row, they are coming. The 36 hours are about up. The Warden, and Greenbaum are approaching with a trustee wheeling a food cart toward my cell. Uh-Oh, time’s up.
The warden beams. “We tried to fill your request over at the Ucelli restaurant but they still didn’t have sage. But have a look at this. With a flourish, he removes a lid, and there before my eyes is a masterpiece of La Cucina Italiana, an incredibly beautiful sauteed Saltimbocca, with genuine sage in the middle. I am confused. Nobody in this town can make anything like it.
Greenberg says, “Before you eat, read the card.” I pick it up. It is on heavy stock, crested with the State Seal. It says simply, “From my personal kitchen. Buon Appetito. You were right. It was indeed justifiable homicide. Enjoy. Go home.” The signature was “Anthony Giorgio Cosimano, Governor.”
I said, “The uncondemned will now eat a hearty meal. ” Everybody smiled. But I didn’t let them have a single bite.
I stand at the bars of my cell, awaiting my special dinner. It is to be the Last Supper before my execution. In a splendid display of compassion, the warden said he absolutely guaranteed that my choice of food would be fulfilled. Then, and only then, will he strap me into “Old Sparky,” and pull the switch. I thought about it for a long time before selecting.
Now I may be excitable, but I’m not as bad as they said at the trial. And I know my food. There are some things you don’t mess with, like traditional recipes that have been unchanged for centuries. But in America, any unpardonable adulteration of food that violates gastronomic tradition is allowed because they believe in free speech.
Sure I bopped that chef at the Ucelli Pazzo. That stronzo deserved it for serving me a Saltimbocca a la Romana with spinach between the Prosciutto and the Scallopine. What a sacrilegious outrage. Even the lowliest kitchen goomba in Italy knows that it is Salvia that goes in there. Sage, sage, sage! But before you judge me, consider the details of my case honestly.
The Ucelli is not my favorite restaurant but I drop in every once in awhile. I know they get good veal, seldom found in America, where the natives are hooked on beef. So I ask the waiter if they can do me a nice Saltimbocca. He is Italian and says, “ Certo, ma shu.” Which means, “Certainly, why sure.” Basically you trust an Italian on food because eating is a rite more sacrosanct than prayer in church; a matter of personal pride and national integrity.
I forgot that Italians never say no, and that waiters are basically paid to sell food. (The tips are for delivering it.) My delight in the dish that is called “somersault in the mouth” was dashed with the first bite. “What the hell is this,” I thundered, pointing to spinach where the sage should be. The waiter knew danger when he saw it and took off for the kitchen with me in hot pursuit. I was stopped by the big chef, a stand-in for Primo Carnera. I called him a gugguzzo and accused him of high treason, of being Un-Italian, and told him he was even too fricken dumb to boil noodles, and his veal could go do somersaults up his culo. “Go back to being a bus-boy,” I jeered, and gave him both horns, the sign of the cornuto.
Then that maladetto went crazy. He swung at me with a meat cleaver so I picked up this pan of spinach and threw it in his face. Primo stumbled and fell backward hitting his head and he goes down for the full count. But it wasn’t the blow that did him in. The jerk died of a heart attack.
Greenbaum, my lawyer, pleaded self-defense, and accidental death. Judge O’Leary ruled homicide. Justice O’Malley confirmed on appeal. Sensitivity to the nuances of food culture cannot be expected from Irish judges. They struck down the Italian defense; that anyone who screws around with a Saltimbocca has committed a grave provocation, which permits a certain amount of agitated response. “Murder first,” they said, and Greenbaum went to the Governor for clemency. There was still no answer from the State House.
In the prison library I looked up the Law, and it says a 36 hour humanitarian stay of execution can be granted at the warden’s request. I had to play for extra time, so I told him my menu choice was Saltimbocca, made with sage, the real Italian way. I figure that would send him on a wild goose chase. The hot seat would stay cool a few hours more.
Now, down Death Row, they are coming. The 36 hours are about up. The Warden, and Greenbaum are approaching with a trustee wheeling a food cart toward my cell. Uh-Oh, time’s up.
The warden beams. “We tried to fill your request over at the Ucelli restaurant but they still didn’t have sage. But have a look at this. With a flourish, he removes a lid, and there before my eyes is a masterpiece of La Cucina Italiana, an incredibly beautiful sauteed Saltimbocca, with genuine sage in the middle. I am confused. Nobody in this town can make anything like it.
Greenberg says, “Before you eat, read the card.” I pick it up. It is on heavy stock, crested with the State Seal. It says simply, “From my personal kitchen. Buon Appetito. You were right. It was indeed justifiable homicide. Enjoy. Go home.” The signature was “Anthony Giorgio Cosimano, Governor.”
I said, “The uncondemned will now eat a hearty meal. ” Everybody smiled. But I didn’t let them have a single bite.
MARTHA by H.C. Klingman
Martha was the last Passenger Pigeon on earth.
Ectopistes migratorius.
Martha’s line is extinct. Dead as a Dodo.
She died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sept. 1, 1914, and was sent to the Smithsonian in an iceblock to be skinned and mounted. A statue in her memory stands on the grounds of her last home.
There were billions of Passenger Pigeons in the sky to greet the white settler. Audobon saw them darkening the sky in enormous flocks of up to 300 miles in length that took hours to fly by. He estimated the flock to be over 2 billion birds.
They were cheap food for slaves, and easy to hunt. There were no restrictions. In 1857 the Ohio Legislature ruled that the Passenger Pigeon needed no protection, and that they were numerous enough. 57 years later they were extinct. A $3000 prize was desperately offered, too late, for a nesting pair.
Whole boxcars full of this pigeon’s meat went East from Michigan and Wisconsin. There were efficient commercial hunters who knowingly wiped out the last great flock of 250,000 birds. They may have celebrated. It is doubtful they cared. Resource exploiters seldom do.
How paradoxical that Martha, the last survivor of her race was given the last rites in Ohio. Her statue can be seen as a decent gesture, but not quite repentance.
Mine is the sad voice of creatures past, with tales of extinction, of killing animals that once lived. They were the victims of greed and human destruction. You have a misnomer for it: “harvesting.”
If you listen carefully in the still of night, in the time of the Dream-moon when the wind is still you may hear it. Sometimes it is a howl, but it can be a yelp, or a hiss, a bleat, croak or cheep, screaming thinly, unheeded. Listen! They are gloomy calls, perhaps for mercy, cries that have passed down through the ages, unable to convey meaning. Scarcely heard, they cannot penetrate the advanced brain of the superior order of Man.
It can be a mew or bray, a snarl or wail, any or all of these, faintly echoing through the veil of former being; ghostly voices that cannot reach Homo Sapiens, where deafness filters out the mournful sounds of animal agony telling of beings that once enjoyed a birthright but were stamped out of existence.
There is not even a word in your language for wiping out an animal race. “Zoocide” would come close, but has not yet been invented because no word for this human action is thought necessary. Only human life is dignified enough for precise nomenclature.[1] Words need thoughts before they are invented. You have them when you kill or murder each other, but when you kill us the act becomes permissible because you say it is. Your egos make it impossible to conceive of any relationship to animals or any other aspect of nature except one that exploits.
Zoos are not there to perpetuate or warn but to confirm your superiority, and satisfy your curiosity. Your solution to preserving the species is taxidermy. In the march toward human destiny there is no place for us except that we have utility to yourselves. Homo Sap forever, tops on the food chain; consumer of all, efficient destroyer of other species though inhabiting the same world.
Why are you unable to understand that all living creatures have their own imperatives for survival. The struggles of the largest whale against an exploding harpoon are the same as the shudders of a netted bird. The fight to continue life is the same in us all, you included.
Nature’s plan once allowed you to take the beasts of the Garden, but you plundered this patrimony taking far, far more than can ever be replaced. This crime is against all nature.
Fauna disappeared in whole flocks, herds or swarms: vertebrates, quadrapeds, mammals, marsupials, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, mollusks, worms and insects. They were shot, speared, hooked, netted, smothered, drowned, asphyxiated, stabbed, stoned, trapped or poisoned. Human ingenuity has always found ways to make the hunt lethal enough to kill huge populations of us, without restraint.
Where once Cod ran so thick you could walk ashore on them, there are only sporadic individuals. They once fed Europe, but that fishery is now dead, hunted beyond its capacity to maintain the biomass within the last few decades.
There are certain whales and Tigers whose numbers you have reduced into the few hundreds or less. The American Bison is like the Indian, thinned out and reduced to living on welfare in reservations. Buffalo Bill Cody, who killed both, lives on as a frontier hero.
The Great Auk’s exit in 1850 was a shame because he was useful for fishbait or feathered cloaks. Australian hunters eliminated the Tasmanian Tiger by 1936, because he liked chickens and sheep. The Dodo became food for Australians only until 1681, a scant century since being spotted by the first white man. There was the Quagga, a Zebra/Horse. The last one died in an Amsterdam Zoo in 1883. Stellar’s Sea Cow, 35 feet of meat and leather was eliminated within 30 years of its discovery. The black Rhino went in 2006, its horn needed for dagger handles by macho Arabs, while the last remaining Caspian Tiger was shot in 1957.
Can you imagine the pride of that hunter…the distinction in having bagged the ultimate specimen, closing out the race with one well-aimed shot? There is no greater thrill on earth.
You have sacrificed us on the altar of your own Moloch destroying a part of yourself in the process. In your little world, effects of mismanagement as trustee will be surely felt. In the dynamic universe it will scarcely be noticed, even as you too become extinct. You are the most dangerous animal of them all. I, Martha, and five billion like me know.
Sic transit Gloria!
[1] regicide, parricide, fratricide, homicide, infanticide, aborticide, genocide, and suicide,
Ectopistes migratorius.
Martha’s line is extinct. Dead as a Dodo.
She died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sept. 1, 1914, and was sent to the Smithsonian in an iceblock to be skinned and mounted. A statue in her memory stands on the grounds of her last home.
There were billions of Passenger Pigeons in the sky to greet the white settler. Audobon saw them darkening the sky in enormous flocks of up to 300 miles in length that took hours to fly by. He estimated the flock to be over 2 billion birds.
They were cheap food for slaves, and easy to hunt. There were no restrictions. In 1857 the Ohio Legislature ruled that the Passenger Pigeon needed no protection, and that they were numerous enough. 57 years later they were extinct. A $3000 prize was desperately offered, too late, for a nesting pair.
Whole boxcars full of this pigeon’s meat went East from Michigan and Wisconsin. There were efficient commercial hunters who knowingly wiped out the last great flock of 250,000 birds. They may have celebrated. It is doubtful they cared. Resource exploiters seldom do.
How paradoxical that Martha, the last survivor of her race was given the last rites in Ohio. Her statue can be seen as a decent gesture, but not quite repentance.
Mine is the sad voice of creatures past, with tales of extinction, of killing animals that once lived. They were the victims of greed and human destruction. You have a misnomer for it: “harvesting.”
If you listen carefully in the still of night, in the time of the Dream-moon when the wind is still you may hear it. Sometimes it is a howl, but it can be a yelp, or a hiss, a bleat, croak or cheep, screaming thinly, unheeded. Listen! They are gloomy calls, perhaps for mercy, cries that have passed down through the ages, unable to convey meaning. Scarcely heard, they cannot penetrate the advanced brain of the superior order of Man.
It can be a mew or bray, a snarl or wail, any or all of these, faintly echoing through the veil of former being; ghostly voices that cannot reach Homo Sapiens, where deafness filters out the mournful sounds of animal agony telling of beings that once enjoyed a birthright but were stamped out of existence.
There is not even a word in your language for wiping out an animal race. “Zoocide” would come close, but has not yet been invented because no word for this human action is thought necessary. Only human life is dignified enough for precise nomenclature.[1] Words need thoughts before they are invented. You have them when you kill or murder each other, but when you kill us the act becomes permissible because you say it is. Your egos make it impossible to conceive of any relationship to animals or any other aspect of nature except one that exploits.
Zoos are not there to perpetuate or warn but to confirm your superiority, and satisfy your curiosity. Your solution to preserving the species is taxidermy. In the march toward human destiny there is no place for us except that we have utility to yourselves. Homo Sap forever, tops on the food chain; consumer of all, efficient destroyer of other species though inhabiting the same world.
Why are you unable to understand that all living creatures have their own imperatives for survival. The struggles of the largest whale against an exploding harpoon are the same as the shudders of a netted bird. The fight to continue life is the same in us all, you included.
Nature’s plan once allowed you to take the beasts of the Garden, but you plundered this patrimony taking far, far more than can ever be replaced. This crime is against all nature.
Fauna disappeared in whole flocks, herds or swarms: vertebrates, quadrapeds, mammals, marsupials, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, mollusks, worms and insects. They were shot, speared, hooked, netted, smothered, drowned, asphyxiated, stabbed, stoned, trapped or poisoned. Human ingenuity has always found ways to make the hunt lethal enough to kill huge populations of us, without restraint.
Where once Cod ran so thick you could walk ashore on them, there are only sporadic individuals. They once fed Europe, but that fishery is now dead, hunted beyond its capacity to maintain the biomass within the last few decades.
There are certain whales and Tigers whose numbers you have reduced into the few hundreds or less. The American Bison is like the Indian, thinned out and reduced to living on welfare in reservations. Buffalo Bill Cody, who killed both, lives on as a frontier hero.
The Great Auk’s exit in 1850 was a shame because he was useful for fishbait or feathered cloaks. Australian hunters eliminated the Tasmanian Tiger by 1936, because he liked chickens and sheep. The Dodo became food for Australians only until 1681, a scant century since being spotted by the first white man. There was the Quagga, a Zebra/Horse. The last one died in an Amsterdam Zoo in 1883. Stellar’s Sea Cow, 35 feet of meat and leather was eliminated within 30 years of its discovery. The black Rhino went in 2006, its horn needed for dagger handles by macho Arabs, while the last remaining Caspian Tiger was shot in 1957.
Can you imagine the pride of that hunter…the distinction in having bagged the ultimate specimen, closing out the race with one well-aimed shot? There is no greater thrill on earth.
You have sacrificed us on the altar of your own Moloch destroying a part of yourself in the process. In your little world, effects of mismanagement as trustee will be surely felt. In the dynamic universe it will scarcely be noticed, even as you too become extinct. You are the most dangerous animal of them all. I, Martha, and five billion like me know.
Sic transit Gloria!
[1] regicide, parricide, fratricide, homicide, infanticide, aborticide, genocide, and suicide,
THE NIGHT DOCTORS by H.C. Klingman
The boy was already old enough to be suspicious of Santa Claus, and some of the other stuff. But he was confused about doctors and angels.
On the one hand there was kindly old Doc Fisher in the white jacket who tried to fool him by making meowing sounds and letting him look around his office to find the little kitty-cat. But he soon saw through that trick, losing a bit of his awe and trust in the process.
And then there were the evil “night doctors” that the neighbor lady warned him about. They were to be feared because they did awful things to you, things he didn’t understand. She said once you got into their clutches only the angels could save you.
He was terrified of the night doctors fearing what they would do if they caught him. So he asked his mother, “Is old Doc Fisher a night doctor, too?”
She replied, “Don’t be silly, there are no night doctors. Don’t listen to those people next door, they’re Catholic, and they’re just trying to scare you because you’re Lutheran. But he was unconvinced and remained fearful.
The next time his Mom took him to Doc Fisher she explained about how the meow and the kitty are only for little boys, and that he was growing up. In the leathery office he climbed up onto a table by himself where the doctor blinded him with a light and told him to open wide. There was a bitter taste of dry wood as his tongue was pressed down hard. He gagged. Twice. The tongue depressor went chunk into the metal wastebasket leaving him with a terrible pain in his throat.
His mother looked tearful, a little worried as Doctor Fisher sat down at a large desk and began writing with a fat pen. He made a phone call, speaking with authority.
Then he turned and gently said, “Louise, bring the little man in next Wednesday ten a.m. at the Deaconess Hospital, and we’ll fix him up. We want him with an empty stomach. No breakfast.”
To the lad he was fatherly. “We’re going to get rid of that nasty hurt in your throat, but you will have to be very brave. You are a big boy now. No crying.” That brings nods from his mother, so he did the same. He told himself he will not cry, and that he will trust kindly old Doc Fisher.
At home, Mom answered Pa’s questions. “It’s a very good hospital, run by a Protestant nursing order. They’re German. But I’ve got to buy him some new brown shoes. He can’t go to the hospital with those scuffed up old ones.”
********************
Wednesday. Summer heat blazes and the boy’s woolen Sunday suit feels like Shredded Wheat. There is torture in his new leather oxfords, his mouth is lined with spiderwebs of a nagging thirst while his stomach feebly protests. He is totally miserable. The walk to the hospital gives him blisters. His mother keeps tugging at him whenever he slows down to stop the stinging. He comes close to tears, trying not to be frightened about what lay ahead, but remembers what the doctor said.
The hospital is large and confusing, and his mother’s hand leads him up stairs and down long corridors to a room where a starchy nurse tells him to take off his clothes. There are strangers around and he is bashful, but he lets his mom remove the prickly suit reducing him first to his BVD’s, then to nudity. Half modesty comes with a flimsy nightgown, open in the back, letting in air and glances at his naked bottom.
Then he is carted, lying flat, down a long aisle to another room, where Doctor Fisher waits, capped and gowned. Competent. His glasses glint and he is wearing a mask. His comforts the boy in a muffled voice, “You are a very good boy; it’ll all be over very quickly and you won’t feel a thing.”
Looking up into the brightness he is aware of something put onto his face. Doctor Fisher tells him to breathe deeply and begin counting. As he does, the numbers melt into a dark heaven, a night so black that he feared...but suddenly there are brilliant shooting stars and colored exploding fireballs, the most thrilling he has ever seen. He is almost sure there were no night doctors in that place.
Then he is again in the bed with the iron rungs, woozily aware of his parents, and a pain in his head. His mom says, “They took out your tonsils, and the adenoids too.” Those were words he didn’t want to understand just yet. He tries to tell them that he was hungry, and wanted something to drink. But there is something missing in his voice.
Finally, they give him a cup of water, and as he drinks it dribbles out through both nostrils. Kindly old Doc Fisher appears in his shirtsleeves and says, “You did just fine, and we are all proud of you. When you get home you can have all the ice cream and ginger ale you want. It will make the pain disappear. Here young man, I have a reward for you. Open it.”
In the box there is a green toy with black dots that has the face of a cat. There is a plunger to press and as it whirls it makes sparks that shoot out of the cat’s eyes and mouth. He has never seen a toy like that before, and, forgetting his pain, he plays with it in total fascination until they arrive at home.
True to kindly old Doc Fisher’s word, there is plenty of ice cream for him, but for a while the ginger ale keeps dripping out of his nose. His Mom says, “That will only last for a couple of days until you learn to swallow differently.”
As he heals he energetically pumps the toy cat to shoot out those splendid sparks, so much like his dream in the operating room. Gradually, it wears out. By then he can drink and eat normally, the new shoes are broken in, and he outgrows the itchy pants and jacket. Other matters began to occupy him though he frequently thinks about the night of streaking planets and spinning constellations. Later, when he is sick with measles, mumps, or whooping cough, kindly old Doc Fisher comes to the house. He was always glad to see him.
But it took a little longer for the night doctors to disappear from their neighborhood.
On the one hand there was kindly old Doc Fisher in the white jacket who tried to fool him by making meowing sounds and letting him look around his office to find the little kitty-cat. But he soon saw through that trick, losing a bit of his awe and trust in the process.
And then there were the evil “night doctors” that the neighbor lady warned him about. They were to be feared because they did awful things to you, things he didn’t understand. She said once you got into their clutches only the angels could save you.
He was terrified of the night doctors fearing what they would do if they caught him. So he asked his mother, “Is old Doc Fisher a night doctor, too?”
She replied, “Don’t be silly, there are no night doctors. Don’t listen to those people next door, they’re Catholic, and they’re just trying to scare you because you’re Lutheran. But he was unconvinced and remained fearful.
The next time his Mom took him to Doc Fisher she explained about how the meow and the kitty are only for little boys, and that he was growing up. In the leathery office he climbed up onto a table by himself where the doctor blinded him with a light and told him to open wide. There was a bitter taste of dry wood as his tongue was pressed down hard. He gagged. Twice. The tongue depressor went chunk into the metal wastebasket leaving him with a terrible pain in his throat.
His mother looked tearful, a little worried as Doctor Fisher sat down at a large desk and began writing with a fat pen. He made a phone call, speaking with authority.
Then he turned and gently said, “Louise, bring the little man in next Wednesday ten a.m. at the Deaconess Hospital, and we’ll fix him up. We want him with an empty stomach. No breakfast.”
To the lad he was fatherly. “We’re going to get rid of that nasty hurt in your throat, but you will have to be very brave. You are a big boy now. No crying.” That brings nods from his mother, so he did the same. He told himself he will not cry, and that he will trust kindly old Doc Fisher.
At home, Mom answered Pa’s questions. “It’s a very good hospital, run by a Protestant nursing order. They’re German. But I’ve got to buy him some new brown shoes. He can’t go to the hospital with those scuffed up old ones.”
********************
Wednesday. Summer heat blazes and the boy’s woolen Sunday suit feels like Shredded Wheat. There is torture in his new leather oxfords, his mouth is lined with spiderwebs of a nagging thirst while his stomach feebly protests. He is totally miserable. The walk to the hospital gives him blisters. His mother keeps tugging at him whenever he slows down to stop the stinging. He comes close to tears, trying not to be frightened about what lay ahead, but remembers what the doctor said.
The hospital is large and confusing, and his mother’s hand leads him up stairs and down long corridors to a room where a starchy nurse tells him to take off his clothes. There are strangers around and he is bashful, but he lets his mom remove the prickly suit reducing him first to his BVD’s, then to nudity. Half modesty comes with a flimsy nightgown, open in the back, letting in air and glances at his naked bottom.
Then he is carted, lying flat, down a long aisle to another room, where Doctor Fisher waits, capped and gowned. Competent. His glasses glint and he is wearing a mask. His comforts the boy in a muffled voice, “You are a very good boy; it’ll all be over very quickly and you won’t feel a thing.”
Looking up into the brightness he is aware of something put onto his face. Doctor Fisher tells him to breathe deeply and begin counting. As he does, the numbers melt into a dark heaven, a night so black that he feared...but suddenly there are brilliant shooting stars and colored exploding fireballs, the most thrilling he has ever seen. He is almost sure there were no night doctors in that place.
Then he is again in the bed with the iron rungs, woozily aware of his parents, and a pain in his head. His mom says, “They took out your tonsils, and the adenoids too.” Those were words he didn’t want to understand just yet. He tries to tell them that he was hungry, and wanted something to drink. But there is something missing in his voice.
Finally, they give him a cup of water, and as he drinks it dribbles out through both nostrils. Kindly old Doc Fisher appears in his shirtsleeves and says, “You did just fine, and we are all proud of you. When you get home you can have all the ice cream and ginger ale you want. It will make the pain disappear. Here young man, I have a reward for you. Open it.”
In the box there is a green toy with black dots that has the face of a cat. There is a plunger to press and as it whirls it makes sparks that shoot out of the cat’s eyes and mouth. He has never seen a toy like that before, and, forgetting his pain, he plays with it in total fascination until they arrive at home.
True to kindly old Doc Fisher’s word, there is plenty of ice cream for him, but for a while the ginger ale keeps dripping out of his nose. His Mom says, “That will only last for a couple of days until you learn to swallow differently.”
As he heals he energetically pumps the toy cat to shoot out those splendid sparks, so much like his dream in the operating room. Gradually, it wears out. By then he can drink and eat normally, the new shoes are broken in, and he outgrows the itchy pants and jacket. Other matters began to occupy him though he frequently thinks about the night of streaking planets and spinning constellations. Later, when he is sick with measles, mumps, or whooping cough, kindly old Doc Fisher comes to the house. He was always glad to see him.
But it took a little longer for the night doctors to disappear from their neighborhood.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
FATHER’S DAY
H.C. Klingman
He sits pensively in the hush of his rented room, scarcely noticing the gathering darkness. A black veil over the horizon dampens the twilight, parodying his own descent into night. His despair intensifies in the gloom, and he can no longer control the state of his mind as anguish over recent events destroys all reason.
Still bitter over the divorce, he thinks of all he has lost, his house and family, his job…all that made life worth living. And now…, everything is so hopeless.
Occult voices whisper sinister thoughts, grinding deeply into his unhappiness, crowding out all else. He is trapped in a black hole facing a life of misery. Could he ever regain something like his old life with all the comforts of home that had made him content?
No, insinuates a witches chorus, it cannot be…cannot be cannot be…
He reflects that his life had not been large enough for his wife’s cravings, and so she had backed out, finding solace with a man who wanted to marry her. The unholy choir mourns "…your son… yes your son, they’re even taking little Marty" His head drops, and his sobs are crys for help. But the chanting voices morph gradually to a basic existential proposition, "not to be, to be, …to be or not to be?" Yes, yes, he thinks, that is the real question. His own sea of troubles is as hopeless as that which had plagued Hamlet.
What would it be like not to be? Would the torment cease? Would it bring him peace? How would Marty react? Would he suffer in grief? What would Marty remember about their life together? He thinks about the finality of suicide. Surely there can be no more pain when life stops. But what about the brief moment before the bullet crashes into the skull? There would be that instant between life and death, that moment after pulling the trigger with his senses still alive for a nanosecond before his brain explodes. His body shudders in dread.
Next to him, on the night table, the Colt 45 lays lethally beside a glass of water and a box of pills. The doctor had said the medication would make him feel better. But he has not taken them, and doubts they are any more than mood changers, of no help. Why take them now?
Presently there is a pounding on the door that intrudes into his reverie, and he wipes his eyes, considering…but why bother answering, nothing matters anymore. The banging increases and he hears an urgent shout, “Dad, Dad, it’s me, Marty.” Marty’s presence is unexpected. It demands attention, and it has enough energy to create a small fissure in his mind-set. The voices pause. He visualizes Marty’s pleading face, his tears. Taking time to reorient himself, he wonders vaguely if his dilemma could have another outcome. Emotionally drained, he is ready to crack.
Through the window he can now see a sliver of sunset glimmering below the rising clouds, and the thought that he might be looking at the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel seems, paradoxically, quite funny. He almost wants to laugh, but there is too much heaviness in his soul. He decides he cannot face his son just now, and waits until the knocking stops and the outside door slams shut. An unearthly earworm is trying to wriggle back into his brain, with a muffled "…to be or not to be not to be…"
He picks up the weapon. Hard and heavy, it smells of oil. Holding it up he thumbs a catch and ejects the magazine. Sliding out the cartridges one by one, he clicks the empty magazine back in. He knows there is still one bullet in the chamber. Daring himself closer to the edge he takes off the safety, and lays the gun back, next to the pills. He picks up the pillbox, absently rattling its contents, then puts it back down..
He remains sitting quietly in the darkness for the longest time. Then he calmly reaches out to the bedstand and chooses his solution.
H.C. Klingman
He sits pensively in the hush of his rented room, scarcely noticing the gathering darkness. A black veil over the horizon dampens the twilight, parodying his own descent into night. His despair intensifies in the gloom, and he can no longer control the state of his mind as anguish over recent events destroys all reason.
Still bitter over the divorce, he thinks of all he has lost, his house and family, his job…all that made life worth living. And now…, everything is so hopeless.
Occult voices whisper sinister thoughts, grinding deeply into his unhappiness, crowding out all else. He is trapped in a black hole facing a life of misery. Could he ever regain something like his old life with all the comforts of home that had made him content?
No, insinuates a witches chorus, it cannot be…cannot be cannot be…
He reflects that his life had not been large enough for his wife’s cravings, and so she had backed out, finding solace with a man who wanted to marry her. The unholy choir mourns "…your son… yes your son, they’re even taking little Marty" His head drops, and his sobs are crys for help. But the chanting voices morph gradually to a basic existential proposition, "not to be, to be, …to be or not to be?" Yes, yes, he thinks, that is the real question. His own sea of troubles is as hopeless as that which had plagued Hamlet.
What would it be like not to be? Would the torment cease? Would it bring him peace? How would Marty react? Would he suffer in grief? What would Marty remember about their life together? He thinks about the finality of suicide. Surely there can be no more pain when life stops. But what about the brief moment before the bullet crashes into the skull? There would be that instant between life and death, that moment after pulling the trigger with his senses still alive for a nanosecond before his brain explodes. His body shudders in dread.
Next to him, on the night table, the Colt 45 lays lethally beside a glass of water and a box of pills. The doctor had said the medication would make him feel better. But he has not taken them, and doubts they are any more than mood changers, of no help. Why take them now?
Presently there is a pounding on the door that intrudes into his reverie, and he wipes his eyes, considering…but why bother answering, nothing matters anymore. The banging increases and he hears an urgent shout, “Dad, Dad, it’s me, Marty.” Marty’s presence is unexpected. It demands attention, and it has enough energy to create a small fissure in his mind-set. The voices pause. He visualizes Marty’s pleading face, his tears. Taking time to reorient himself, he wonders vaguely if his dilemma could have another outcome. Emotionally drained, he is ready to crack.
Through the window he can now see a sliver of sunset glimmering below the rising clouds, and the thought that he might be looking at the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel seems, paradoxically, quite funny. He almost wants to laugh, but there is too much heaviness in his soul. He decides he cannot face his son just now, and waits until the knocking stops and the outside door slams shut. An unearthly earworm is trying to wriggle back into his brain, with a muffled "…to be or not to be not to be…"
He picks up the weapon. Hard and heavy, it smells of oil. Holding it up he thumbs a catch and ejects the magazine. Sliding out the cartridges one by one, he clicks the empty magazine back in. He knows there is still one bullet in the chamber. Daring himself closer to the edge he takes off the safety, and lays the gun back, next to the pills. He picks up the pillbox, absently rattling its contents, then puts it back down..
He remains sitting quietly in the darkness for the longest time. Then he calmly reaches out to the bedstand and chooses his solution.
The Missing Link
H.C. Klingman
I was preparing copies of my dissertation “Synchronisity in Random Sequences” when the telephone rang. It was Laura, my ex-fiancee. I had reluctantly moved out when she said she needed some time alone, a trial separation sort of thing. I hoped some fragments of the relationship lingered.
“Hi,” she said cheerily, “how’s it going?” We hadn’t talked in the two months since my low-key departure, and so I wondered about the friendly tone and why she was calling me now. She wasn’t one for chatting. There was always meaning behind her talk, so I searched for clues.
“Great,” I said, thinking she meant my Ph.D work. “Prof. Curtis and the Committee accepted it without revision. What’s up with you?”
“Busy-busy, power-shopping for new clothes and stuff, cooking up a storm, preparing for a new life. I just wondered if you could drop by tonight, I’ve got a surprise for you. Six?”
All kinds of possibilities came to mind, but I suppressed thinking about them until I had a chance to lay them out logically, so I answered, “…be fine, great, see you then” and hung up eager to give it scrutiny.
I was warmed by the notion that she might want me back. But what were the signs for that? Well, she was the one who called, she sounded happy, she asked me for six and said she was cooking so that meant dinner and deep talk, didn’t it?
For the last several months I had been in my research cocoon, and had missed many signals from her, so I started analyzing the jigsaw puzzle of our relationship. Laura wanted, above everything, to get married and have children. I wanted to wait. That was why I got alarmed when I noticed her irregular use of the Pill. Then I remembered her skipping breakfast, and other stuff, but she told me it was nothing, and not to worry.
So I hadn’t. Until now. What had she meant by “new clothes and stuff, a new life?” Was she getting maternity clothes and baby things? I remembered seeing her entering the Medical Arts Building a couple of weeks ago. Could she be sick, something awful that she wanted to tell me now in confidence? But she had looked in glowing health. And a sick person doesn’t avoid the problem by buying a new outfit or entertaining an old lover. Not Laura. She was practical.
When I considered the signs, they seemed to add up to only one thing. Her “surprise” was a reality that I must now face along with the “new life”. Yes of course, that was it, she had prepared all this to announce her pregnancy. That was just like her. Curiously, it didn’t scare me anymore. After all, I still loved her, my doctorate and a research position were in the bag, and I could now become a family man.
I ran the scenario through my head. I would ring the doorbell at six sharp, she would open the door smiling welcome as I exchanged a nosegay for a light peck on the cheek. There would be fine aromas of food, and her table would be a showpiece of crystal, bone china and stiff linen. She knew the trappings. After cocktails, a leisurely candlelit dinner would warm the atmosphere, and then, afterward, with the stage fully set, she would deliver the news, the catalyst for our future together, and we would seal our reunion as lovers should.
I got a sudden thought, as I pushed the bell, that I would politely preempt her staged annunciation, putting her at ease, by telling her straightaway that I knew and accepted what was, and that we could celebrate the event in quiet harmony. Laura, in perfume and stunning dress, opened the door and said, “C’mon in” turning to lead the way. No kiss, yet. She looked great, happy and content with her life, and the life within. Gourmet essences wafted from the kitchen.
In the foyer she stopped and asked, “Can you guess?” I could see her table set festively for two, and figured she wanted to get that question out of the way first. That was right on my wavelength.
“I think I can,” I said, “I saw you going to the doctor’s office, in preparation for the new life. I just want to say it’s alright, and that I’m hungry as hell for your cooking.” A funny expression came over her face, one at odds with the topic, as she handed me a small box. “What’s this,” I asked, “some kind of gift?”
She replied, as usual, in code, “Have you noticed something missing in your life since we broke up?”
“Yes,” I said, jumping on the wrong track of that train of thought.
Still cryptic she asked, “What requires a pair, and is useless as a single? That’s my surprise. Open it.” I saw this as a veiled reference to parenting. In the box there was a single solid gold cufflink, the lost mate to one I had at home. They were valuable heirlooms. She said, “I found it while cleaning after you left, and since I know what they mean to you I thought I would return it to you before my trip.”
I tried to work that one out as she guided me by the elbow to the door. I asked, “You’re taking a trip?”
“Yes I went to the Doctor to get all my shots, and bought a bush hat and jacket and all sorts of gear for our African Safari.”
“Our,…who’s our?
“My new boyfriend, Alec, he’s coming for dinner in a few minutes, so I don’t have more time to talk right now, I’ll buzz you when we get back.”
I was still holding my wilting posies when I started to say, …”you mean you’re not…” but the door was already up against my very red face.
H.C. Klingman
I was preparing copies of my dissertation “Synchronisity in Random Sequences” when the telephone rang. It was Laura, my ex-fiancee. I had reluctantly moved out when she said she needed some time alone, a trial separation sort of thing. I hoped some fragments of the relationship lingered.
“Hi,” she said cheerily, “how’s it going?” We hadn’t talked in the two months since my low-key departure, and so I wondered about the friendly tone and why she was calling me now. She wasn’t one for chatting. There was always meaning behind her talk, so I searched for clues.
“Great,” I said, thinking she meant my Ph.D work. “Prof. Curtis and the Committee accepted it without revision. What’s up with you?”
“Busy-busy, power-shopping for new clothes and stuff, cooking up a storm, preparing for a new life. I just wondered if you could drop by tonight, I’ve got a surprise for you. Six?”
All kinds of possibilities came to mind, but I suppressed thinking about them until I had a chance to lay them out logically, so I answered, “…be fine, great, see you then” and hung up eager to give it scrutiny.
I was warmed by the notion that she might want me back. But what were the signs for that? Well, she was the one who called, she sounded happy, she asked me for six and said she was cooking so that meant dinner and deep talk, didn’t it?
For the last several months I had been in my research cocoon, and had missed many signals from her, so I started analyzing the jigsaw puzzle of our relationship. Laura wanted, above everything, to get married and have children. I wanted to wait. That was why I got alarmed when I noticed her irregular use of the Pill. Then I remembered her skipping breakfast, and other stuff, but she told me it was nothing, and not to worry.
So I hadn’t. Until now. What had she meant by “new clothes and stuff, a new life?” Was she getting maternity clothes and baby things? I remembered seeing her entering the Medical Arts Building a couple of weeks ago. Could she be sick, something awful that she wanted to tell me now in confidence? But she had looked in glowing health. And a sick person doesn’t avoid the problem by buying a new outfit or entertaining an old lover. Not Laura. She was practical.
When I considered the signs, they seemed to add up to only one thing. Her “surprise” was a reality that I must now face along with the “new life”. Yes of course, that was it, she had prepared all this to announce her pregnancy. That was just like her. Curiously, it didn’t scare me anymore. After all, I still loved her, my doctorate and a research position were in the bag, and I could now become a family man.
I ran the scenario through my head. I would ring the doorbell at six sharp, she would open the door smiling welcome as I exchanged a nosegay for a light peck on the cheek. There would be fine aromas of food, and her table would be a showpiece of crystal, bone china and stiff linen. She knew the trappings. After cocktails, a leisurely candlelit dinner would warm the atmosphere, and then, afterward, with the stage fully set, she would deliver the news, the catalyst for our future together, and we would seal our reunion as lovers should.
I got a sudden thought, as I pushed the bell, that I would politely preempt her staged annunciation, putting her at ease, by telling her straightaway that I knew and accepted what was, and that we could celebrate the event in quiet harmony. Laura, in perfume and stunning dress, opened the door and said, “C’mon in” turning to lead the way. No kiss, yet. She looked great, happy and content with her life, and the life within. Gourmet essences wafted from the kitchen.
In the foyer she stopped and asked, “Can you guess?” I could see her table set festively for two, and figured she wanted to get that question out of the way first. That was right on my wavelength.
“I think I can,” I said, “I saw you going to the doctor’s office, in preparation for the new life. I just want to say it’s alright, and that I’m hungry as hell for your cooking.” A funny expression came over her face, one at odds with the topic, as she handed me a small box. “What’s this,” I asked, “some kind of gift?”
She replied, as usual, in code, “Have you noticed something missing in your life since we broke up?”
“Yes,” I said, jumping on the wrong track of that train of thought.
Still cryptic she asked, “What requires a pair, and is useless as a single? That’s my surprise. Open it.” I saw this as a veiled reference to parenting. In the box there was a single solid gold cufflink, the lost mate to one I had at home. They were valuable heirlooms. She said, “I found it while cleaning after you left, and since I know what they mean to you I thought I would return it to you before my trip.”
I tried to work that one out as she guided me by the elbow to the door. I asked, “You’re taking a trip?”
“Yes I went to the Doctor to get all my shots, and bought a bush hat and jacket and all sorts of gear for our African Safari.”
“Our,…who’s our?
“My new boyfriend, Alec, he’s coming for dinner in a few minutes, so I don’t have more time to talk right now, I’ll buzz you when we get back.”
I was still holding my wilting posies when I started to say, …”you mean you’re not…” but the door was already up against my very red face.
Untethered.
H.C. Klingman
I am dimly conscious, waking to a strange world. Blurred, masked faces look down at me, eyeglasses glinting between bright lights. Busy hands stretch out from green gowns. A voice says, “Give him a little more, let’s keep him comfortable.” Strangely, I feel no pain. My last moment of recall was the crashing blow that ended in a white flash, an instant that turned into darkness.
It seems like I was gone only a second, or was it a century? I try to remember. Wispy images come and go, in and out of a fog. With a vague sense of something beyond, I chase memory fragments, to find out who I am.
The commandment to migrate was strongest in my grandfather Miklos, and his father, Yul. I see their wagons, always on the move. They stop only briefly, the men of their family earning money along the way as tinkers, handymen repairing anything, or trading horses. They were the Roma, gypsies who shun the attachment of place, who wander because they die in confinement. I am one of them.
The old ones were always able to find a dog or pony to be trained and sold at the next stop. Their women told fortunes, or begged on wealthy street-corners. They knew omens and curses and could enter and leave stores invisibly.
When outsiders drank wine at our campfires, swarthy girls danced sinuously to guitars. Deft fingers caressed wallets and unsheathed knives settled arguments. Gone are the groans of old wagons, the creak of harness, or the pungent sweat of horses straining in slowly moving landscapes. Absent now, the makeshift bivouacs in open fields, that were broken up by an irate farmer or a sheriff.
They stayed miles ahead of vengeful townsmen, the “gadje” who thought we were villains, thieves and sorcerers. We, in turn, considered them marks, victims to be tricked or cheated. They knew nothing of real freedom, of souls unburdened by civilized baggage.
I focus hard on the present, against the anesthetic that lures me into darkness, and wonder how I got here; what happened.
I once knew, even before the honking geese, that winter was coming. Dunja, my treasure, my lovely daughter, knew it too. All of us of the blood feel the call to follow an uncertain life, to leave the places where hostile men’s laws have power over us.
Where is Dunja? What has happened to her?
What remains of the old days is a sense of the road beyond, traveled now in diesel sedans pulling small trailers. That is my life too. Between bouts of fitful sleep I reassemble events to find out how I got here.
We are packing our trailers to leave a park, when fast pounding hoof-beats announce a rider approaching swiftly. I see that it is a runaway horse fighting its bit. It is a stampeding, bucking menace, lathered white. The rider is a terrified girl, dark haired, like my Dunja, and she is screaming, tugging helplessly at the reins. This can only end in terrible injury to bones and flesh, or even death, I thought..
What was it that caused me, in that dangerous instant, to intervene? Was it a gypsy’s instincts for taming horseflesh, or a father saving a child? Or was it an urge to overcome the lengthening shadows of age? I make a lightning grab for the bridle and pain shoots up into my shoulder sockets. I am dragged several yards digging in my heels but finally manage to turn the large head of the stallion that this child has foolishly ridden. The headlong run is halted, but the horse snorts and stamps in protest.
I help the hysterical girl from the saddle, but the instinct of my fathers was absent as I carelessly let down my guard. The kick was swift, the iron hoof smashing into my face, turning off lights that came on again only in the operating theater.
I am now in a private room. There is a nurse and a doctor, and…and an angel with white skin. Dunja, my Dunja, but I cannot say it, unable to move my wired jaw or my head. My pains are now severe, and the nurse adjusts a morphine drip.
The doctor says, “You’ve been away for a long time. Don’t try to speak, you’re in good hands here and will slowly make a complete recovery. We will keep you in traction until your bones heal. Then, we will give you beautiful teeth, and you can regrow that big mustache we had to remove. The papers and TV have made you a local hero because you rescued the daughter of the mayor. Dunja can tell you everything. I’ll leave you with her.”
Dunja says, smiling through tears. “Bapo my poor dear Bapo, you are now out of danger. There is so much good news for us. You saved the girl’s life and her grateful father ordered you here at his expense. We have been given a rent-free apartment. There is also a fund drive, and more money than we have ever seen is coming in from all over. A job is promised for you in the Parks Department, and I have taken work at a travel agency.”
I wish to remark about her immodest skirt, and revealing sweater, but cannot. I am so confused about everything. How can I explain? I cannot speak or write. My questions are not about money or comfort. Like the stallion, I am desperate to avoid captivity. Like him, gypsies must resist fates forced upon them. From deep within me comes a sad cry to escape, to return to the true life, unbound by all except my family.
After this hospital, where is freedom? How can I ever live in that apartment, do gadjes work, follow their bidding? Oh, how long will it take until I can again be with gay Roma spirits that have circled the earth with music and laughter for a thousand years; phantoms that speak to me more loudly than the voices of these outsiders. Ah, dear child of my love, do you not see in my face the wounds of my soul? How far away from the true life have you gone in my absence?
I search for understanding, but her sorrow for me does not shield an expression of something different, a young mind with hopes I cannot share. This weighs upon me more heavily than the pains in my head. I am too helpless to save her.
Drugs pull me into retreat from the white sheets of my prison, back to images of a life as free as the wind on moors, or the sand of shifting deserts. There is a place for me around a large fire, where passionate melodies of suffering and love are plucked from strings of gypsy guitars. Castanets clap wild rhythms, and tambourines talk. The popping logs send plumes of sparks skyward, like gypsies, vanishing into the dark night.
H.C. Klingman
I am dimly conscious, waking to a strange world. Blurred, masked faces look down at me, eyeglasses glinting between bright lights. Busy hands stretch out from green gowns. A voice says, “Give him a little more, let’s keep him comfortable.” Strangely, I feel no pain. My last moment of recall was the crashing blow that ended in a white flash, an instant that turned into darkness.
It seems like I was gone only a second, or was it a century? I try to remember. Wispy images come and go, in and out of a fog. With a vague sense of something beyond, I chase memory fragments, to find out who I am.
The commandment to migrate was strongest in my grandfather Miklos, and his father, Yul. I see their wagons, always on the move. They stop only briefly, the men of their family earning money along the way as tinkers, handymen repairing anything, or trading horses. They were the Roma, gypsies who shun the attachment of place, who wander because they die in confinement. I am one of them.
The old ones were always able to find a dog or pony to be trained and sold at the next stop. Their women told fortunes, or begged on wealthy street-corners. They knew omens and curses and could enter and leave stores invisibly.
When outsiders drank wine at our campfires, swarthy girls danced sinuously to guitars. Deft fingers caressed wallets and unsheathed knives settled arguments. Gone are the groans of old wagons, the creak of harness, or the pungent sweat of horses straining in slowly moving landscapes. Absent now, the makeshift bivouacs in open fields, that were broken up by an irate farmer or a sheriff.
They stayed miles ahead of vengeful townsmen, the “gadje” who thought we were villains, thieves and sorcerers. We, in turn, considered them marks, victims to be tricked or cheated. They knew nothing of real freedom, of souls unburdened by civilized baggage.
I focus hard on the present, against the anesthetic that lures me into darkness, and wonder how I got here; what happened.
I once knew, even before the honking geese, that winter was coming. Dunja, my treasure, my lovely daughter, knew it too. All of us of the blood feel the call to follow an uncertain life, to leave the places where hostile men’s laws have power over us.
Where is Dunja? What has happened to her?
What remains of the old days is a sense of the road beyond, traveled now in diesel sedans pulling small trailers. That is my life too. Between bouts of fitful sleep I reassemble events to find out how I got here.
We are packing our trailers to leave a park, when fast pounding hoof-beats announce a rider approaching swiftly. I see that it is a runaway horse fighting its bit. It is a stampeding, bucking menace, lathered white. The rider is a terrified girl, dark haired, like my Dunja, and she is screaming, tugging helplessly at the reins. This can only end in terrible injury to bones and flesh, or even death, I thought..
What was it that caused me, in that dangerous instant, to intervene? Was it a gypsy’s instincts for taming horseflesh, or a father saving a child? Or was it an urge to overcome the lengthening shadows of age? I make a lightning grab for the bridle and pain shoots up into my shoulder sockets. I am dragged several yards digging in my heels but finally manage to turn the large head of the stallion that this child has foolishly ridden. The headlong run is halted, but the horse snorts and stamps in protest.
I help the hysterical girl from the saddle, but the instinct of my fathers was absent as I carelessly let down my guard. The kick was swift, the iron hoof smashing into my face, turning off lights that came on again only in the operating theater.
I am now in a private room. There is a nurse and a doctor, and…and an angel with white skin. Dunja, my Dunja, but I cannot say it, unable to move my wired jaw or my head. My pains are now severe, and the nurse adjusts a morphine drip.
The doctor says, “You’ve been away for a long time. Don’t try to speak, you’re in good hands here and will slowly make a complete recovery. We will keep you in traction until your bones heal. Then, we will give you beautiful teeth, and you can regrow that big mustache we had to remove. The papers and TV have made you a local hero because you rescued the daughter of the mayor. Dunja can tell you everything. I’ll leave you with her.”
Dunja says, smiling through tears. “Bapo my poor dear Bapo, you are now out of danger. There is so much good news for us. You saved the girl’s life and her grateful father ordered you here at his expense. We have been given a rent-free apartment. There is also a fund drive, and more money than we have ever seen is coming in from all over. A job is promised for you in the Parks Department, and I have taken work at a travel agency.”
I wish to remark about her immodest skirt, and revealing sweater, but cannot. I am so confused about everything. How can I explain? I cannot speak or write. My questions are not about money or comfort. Like the stallion, I am desperate to avoid captivity. Like him, gypsies must resist fates forced upon them. From deep within me comes a sad cry to escape, to return to the true life, unbound by all except my family.
After this hospital, where is freedom? How can I ever live in that apartment, do gadjes work, follow their bidding? Oh, how long will it take until I can again be with gay Roma spirits that have circled the earth with music and laughter for a thousand years; phantoms that speak to me more loudly than the voices of these outsiders. Ah, dear child of my love, do you not see in my face the wounds of my soul? How far away from the true life have you gone in my absence?
I search for understanding, but her sorrow for me does not shield an expression of something different, a young mind with hopes I cannot share. This weighs upon me more heavily than the pains in my head. I am too helpless to save her.
Drugs pull me into retreat from the white sheets of my prison, back to images of a life as free as the wind on moors, or the sand of shifting deserts. There is a place for me around a large fire, where passionate melodies of suffering and love are plucked from strings of gypsy guitars. Castanets clap wild rhythms, and tambourines talk. The popping logs send plumes of sparks skyward, like gypsies, vanishing into the dark night.
TWITTER: kg
H.C. Klingman
Okay, I gotta tellya why I’m mad at this stage of my life. I’ve been to a few foster homes, and here I am, being shown again with people looking at me like I’m a dumb animal. I’m thinking if they only want a stupid pet to cuddle, they should buy a teddy bear.
It’s tough fitting into a new household. The last family that got me had two nasty kids that liked to torment me. Then there was their damn cat. They were always hassling me in some way, and I knew I had to get out of that prison.
The deal was, I’m there for a trial period, and if they didn’t like me they can send me back for a restocking charge. So I tried to figure out ways to annoy them. After a lot of disrespectful wisecracks that didn’t work, I found the answer. I sang loudly or talked at the top of my voice at night. Then I bit a finger. That did it. After that the father swore mightily and said, “That little black bastard is going back, first thing in the morning.”
So it’s back to the perch in that pet shop behind the stinky puppies. I tease them by imitating their little yelps. The owner is a tightwad who skimps on birdseed, even when he’s asking top buck for me, the most expensive animal in the store. A cheaper parrot lived a few cages down, but he hadn’t talked much English in the last 50 years, and was probably past his shelf life.
The greedy old owner was tired of having to recycle me. And there were no takers despite the enticing words written on the card that said, “Mynah Bird, India, Imitative Avian. Talks. Special Price. The favorite bird of the maharajahs.” He offered discounts, but there were no takers.
People would come close to the cage and the best they could muster up was a lame “Hello” as though I were some kind of a retarded mocking bird. But I never liked their looks so I sulked and kept my beak shut. The miserable shop owner always tried to induce me to talk or sing for prospective customers. But a bird’s got his pride. I didn’t perform on cue and awaited my chance. What I wanted was a nice family, no kids or pets, a big cage and a full seed cup.
I was waiting for the right opportunity to recite my confidential resume, an achievement unequaled among vocalizing birds, including that dopey Pakistani parrot in the next aisle who spoke mostly Pashtu. Who’d want him. You’d need a dictionary. So I practiced quietly, biding my time.
I sensed a chance to get a new home when my wily old Fagan put an ad in the paper announcing a raffle and a “Talking contest between a loquacious Pakistani Parrot, and a talkative Indian Mynah.” The idea was the winner of the raffle would get to pick the bird that spoke the best. Pretty smart. That way me and old Paki would talk up a storm outdoing each other to vamoose that dump and the winner could pick from two contenders at their best. I wanted that “Get out of Jail” card badly.
Old Scrooge put fresh Naples Daily News into our cages and took us down to the packed lodge hall. He was going to clean up on this deal, and get rid of hard to move inventory. The losing bird was to be auctioned off. No lottery like that for me, man. I was thinking furiously, planning my tactics, and vowed that the squawker with the crooked beak would be put on the block to second place destiny. I preened my feathers to a glossy black and cleared my throat.
The format was simple. First came the drawing to select the winning judge. The old fart would then put us each onto a perch, and speak a tailored phrase for us to repeat. (This avoids ad-libbing that could produce profanity that all imitative avians engage in from time to time.) It demonstrated the quality of our elocution. (A few sybillants, and no gutturals showed us off at our phonetic best.)
The parrot, who was in beginning moult, came first. Holding a few sunflower seeds in his fist, our miserly speech teacher slowly said the words, “Hello, hello, how are you? Are you singing in the shower.” The parrot was slow on the uptake, so he slipped him a bribe and repeated, “Are you singing in the shower?” The hall was silent as all awaited that birdbrain’s reply. Then, after two head bobs, and a ruffling of feathers, he came out with it, giving a peremptory “Awwk”, that revealed his low class.
I must say I admire his courage because his accent was rusty, having spent too many years of his long life in a Pakistani pet shop. But he stabilized and slowly, with some fuzziness in the consonants, he said, “Yes I am fine. I am sinning in Peshawar.” It was fairly close to “Singing in the Shower.” I thought that was not a bad effort for an exotic costing only 129.99, but his Pashtu accent meant that he was a loser and I was going to win. Besides, he couldn’t ad-lib.
So when my turn came, I went for it. Ignoring the maestro’s prompting, and his infantile patter, I launched my full throated resume for the slam dunk, declaiming it in fine Calcutta Oxford diction.
“No cluck like a chicken, but wise as an owl.
Not pretty as a parrot, that fine feathered fowl,
Not regal as the eagle, that scavenging dope,
Nor preening as peacocks, who’re dumb beyond hope.
The paradise bird shows off like a whore,
And parakeet’s mutterings totally bore.
And if crows could but talk, I’d win each debate
Cause Mynah’s IQ is a hundred and eight.”
At first stunned, the crowd went wild with applause for my bravura performance, and the lucky number guy came forward to claim his prize. But he headed right for my neighbor. I ask you, what moron would pick a virtually tongue-tied refugee from the Bird Market of Peshawar over me? I’ll bet he was some kind of terrorist! My rage was enormous as I whistled and rasped my objections to this fowl injustice.
But, on closer inspection I decided I didn’t like this guy’s simian look, or his ponce outfit. He said, as he claimed his prize, “I’ll take the parrot. He tried so hard, besides who needs a wise-guy Mynah poet who can’t follow instructions.”
The jerk walked down the aisle carrying the cage with his dopey prize, coaxing it with sickening banality, “Polly want a cracker?” I was glad to have avoided such linguistic mediocrity. So I got auctioned off as runner-up. I thought anything was better than a guy with purple socks.
Today I finally got lucky. There was only one bid in response to old sleaze-bag’s strenuous auctioneering. The kindly little old lady shouted a preemptive bid, “Six hundred dollars, and you throw in a big cage.” I was enchanted with her right from the beginning.
Back at the pet shop the deal was concluded and I knew I was finally in for a cushy life when she bought the most expensive bird seed, some special treats, and a little bell for my cage. For that generosity I would have imitated a canary. The cage was a spacious model I knew. I could pick the catch on the door, and get out whenever I wanted.
So, I determined to enjoy my new home by being a cute little companion in her old age, as long as she didn’t get too possessive or come down with Alzheimers. If she did, I had only to wait until there was an open window. Then, as they say, I would fly the coop. Is that KG enough for you?
H.C. Klingman
Okay, I gotta tellya why I’m mad at this stage of my life. I’ve been to a few foster homes, and here I am, being shown again with people looking at me like I’m a dumb animal. I’m thinking if they only want a stupid pet to cuddle, they should buy a teddy bear.
It’s tough fitting into a new household. The last family that got me had two nasty kids that liked to torment me. Then there was their damn cat. They were always hassling me in some way, and I knew I had to get out of that prison.
The deal was, I’m there for a trial period, and if they didn’t like me they can send me back for a restocking charge. So I tried to figure out ways to annoy them. After a lot of disrespectful wisecracks that didn’t work, I found the answer. I sang loudly or talked at the top of my voice at night. Then I bit a finger. That did it. After that the father swore mightily and said, “That little black bastard is going back, first thing in the morning.”
So it’s back to the perch in that pet shop behind the stinky puppies. I tease them by imitating their little yelps. The owner is a tightwad who skimps on birdseed, even when he’s asking top buck for me, the most expensive animal in the store. A cheaper parrot lived a few cages down, but he hadn’t talked much English in the last 50 years, and was probably past his shelf life.
The greedy old owner was tired of having to recycle me. And there were no takers despite the enticing words written on the card that said, “Mynah Bird, India, Imitative Avian. Talks. Special Price. The favorite bird of the maharajahs.” He offered discounts, but there were no takers.
People would come close to the cage and the best they could muster up was a lame “Hello” as though I were some kind of a retarded mocking bird. But I never liked their looks so I sulked and kept my beak shut. The miserable shop owner always tried to induce me to talk or sing for prospective customers. But a bird’s got his pride. I didn’t perform on cue and awaited my chance. What I wanted was a nice family, no kids or pets, a big cage and a full seed cup.
I was waiting for the right opportunity to recite my confidential resume, an achievement unequaled among vocalizing birds, including that dopey Pakistani parrot in the next aisle who spoke mostly Pashtu. Who’d want him. You’d need a dictionary. So I practiced quietly, biding my time.
I sensed a chance to get a new home when my wily old Fagan put an ad in the paper announcing a raffle and a “Talking contest between a loquacious Pakistani Parrot, and a talkative Indian Mynah.” The idea was the winner of the raffle would get to pick the bird that spoke the best. Pretty smart. That way me and old Paki would talk up a storm outdoing each other to vamoose that dump and the winner could pick from two contenders at their best. I wanted that “Get out of Jail” card badly.
Old Scrooge put fresh Naples Daily News into our cages and took us down to the packed lodge hall. He was going to clean up on this deal, and get rid of hard to move inventory. The losing bird was to be auctioned off. No lottery like that for me, man. I was thinking furiously, planning my tactics, and vowed that the squawker with the crooked beak would be put on the block to second place destiny. I preened my feathers to a glossy black and cleared my throat.
The format was simple. First came the drawing to select the winning judge. The old fart would then put us each onto a perch, and speak a tailored phrase for us to repeat. (This avoids ad-libbing that could produce profanity that all imitative avians engage in from time to time.) It demonstrated the quality of our elocution. (A few sybillants, and no gutturals showed us off at our phonetic best.)
The parrot, who was in beginning moult, came first. Holding a few sunflower seeds in his fist, our miserly speech teacher slowly said the words, “Hello, hello, how are you? Are you singing in the shower.” The parrot was slow on the uptake, so he slipped him a bribe and repeated, “Are you singing in the shower?” The hall was silent as all awaited that birdbrain’s reply. Then, after two head bobs, and a ruffling of feathers, he came out with it, giving a peremptory “Awwk”, that revealed his low class.
I must say I admire his courage because his accent was rusty, having spent too many years of his long life in a Pakistani pet shop. But he stabilized and slowly, with some fuzziness in the consonants, he said, “Yes I am fine. I am sinning in Peshawar.” It was fairly close to “Singing in the Shower.” I thought that was not a bad effort for an exotic costing only 129.99, but his Pashtu accent meant that he was a loser and I was going to win. Besides, he couldn’t ad-lib.
So when my turn came, I went for it. Ignoring the maestro’s prompting, and his infantile patter, I launched my full throated resume for the slam dunk, declaiming it in fine Calcutta Oxford diction.
“No cluck like a chicken, but wise as an owl.
Not pretty as a parrot, that fine feathered fowl,
Not regal as the eagle, that scavenging dope,
Nor preening as peacocks, who’re dumb beyond hope.
The paradise bird shows off like a whore,
And parakeet’s mutterings totally bore.
And if crows could but talk, I’d win each debate
Cause Mynah’s IQ is a hundred and eight.”
At first stunned, the crowd went wild with applause for my bravura performance, and the lucky number guy came forward to claim his prize. But he headed right for my neighbor. I ask you, what moron would pick a virtually tongue-tied refugee from the Bird Market of Peshawar over me? I’ll bet he was some kind of terrorist! My rage was enormous as I whistled and rasped my objections to this fowl injustice.
But, on closer inspection I decided I didn’t like this guy’s simian look, or his ponce outfit. He said, as he claimed his prize, “I’ll take the parrot. He tried so hard, besides who needs a wise-guy Mynah poet who can’t follow instructions.”
The jerk walked down the aisle carrying the cage with his dopey prize, coaxing it with sickening banality, “Polly want a cracker?” I was glad to have avoided such linguistic mediocrity. So I got auctioned off as runner-up. I thought anything was better than a guy with purple socks.
Today I finally got lucky. There was only one bid in response to old sleaze-bag’s strenuous auctioneering. The kindly little old lady shouted a preemptive bid, “Six hundred dollars, and you throw in a big cage.” I was enchanted with her right from the beginning.
Back at the pet shop the deal was concluded and I knew I was finally in for a cushy life when she bought the most expensive bird seed, some special treats, and a little bell for my cage. For that generosity I would have imitated a canary. The cage was a spacious model I knew. I could pick the catch on the door, and get out whenever I wanted.
So, I determined to enjoy my new home by being a cute little companion in her old age, as long as she didn’t get too possessive or come down with Alzheimers. If she did, I had only to wait until there was an open window. Then, as they say, I would fly the coop. Is that KG enough for you?
Monday, May 10, 2010
THRENODY H.C. Klingman
I am the primal arboreal spirit, the guardian of woodlands gone, mourner of vanished realms of Universal creation. I am the death throes of the fallen, the moan of branch and the grief of rotting bark. But I am also the resurrection that lifts seedlings in stubborn renewal to an uncertain future. And, I am the leafy miracle that transubstantiates air, the holy breath of earthly life. Listen to my lament!
From the stunted pines of Patagonia, to the land of the Redwood, in tundra or savannah, I am there. I am there in dwarfed Bonzais or rotund Baobabs. I know the lonely survivors of windblown shores and peerless giants whose spires soar in the rainforest, and I live in the grace of palms in sandy places. I am the protector of their living essence, the birthright of their nature. I know them all.
I was there before you felled sturdy oaks to timber Albion’s ships of conquest, and I am still in the bones of Phoenician cedars, the shrunken copse once forest, sacrificed for temples and palaces of vain potentates. In haunted graveyards of slain Sequoias, empty groves of mahogany and teak, ghostly stumps of ebony or cypress, all denied the right of natural presence, I am there too.
To the ring of the axe, our corpses became your milestones: fenceposts of stolen lands, utility poles, trestles, and ties that spanned the globe. We were even in the machines of execution, your cross and gallows. Our sacrifice gave fire to your hearth, fruits to your table, joy to your children, and we were home to creatures of earth and sky, for birds to nest, a place for your dogs to mark or cats to climb. All these, still in nature’s balance, we gave.
With roaring chainsaws you became deaf, a plunderer, razing Amazon’s green lung, or clear-cutting mountainsides of virgin timber, living growth that was there, in the Garden, before Adam. You still defile our sylvan beauty with a scorn that plagues our planet. Daily, my forests are pulped to print news, or the ads, seen once then carted to landfills. Corporations lumber without restraint for the objects of your desire, gouging livid wounds that never heal.
I gave you nature’s quota, but you took more. You ate from the Tree of Knowledge but did not become wise, and your Tree of Life became unfruitful when you worshipped The Money Tree, a corrupt growth, grafted on roots of avarice.
Do we not bleed when we are cut, do we not Live just as you, within our own cosmic destiny? In the mournful music of the age can you not hear our prayer? Listen! Let it lead you to simple wisdom, taking only what nature can replace, protecting all the rest, from quaking Aspen to the proud Douglas Fir. And it will repay the debt you owe since you joined us here on earth.
For extinction is eternal Hell, and yours would come just after ours.
I am the primal arboreal spirit, the guardian of woodlands gone, mourner of vanished realms of Universal creation. I am the death throes of the fallen, the moan of branch and the grief of rotting bark. But I am also the resurrection that lifts seedlings in stubborn renewal to an uncertain future. And, I am the leafy miracle that transubstantiates air, the holy breath of earthly life. Listen to my lament!
From the stunted pines of Patagonia, to the land of the Redwood, in tundra or savannah, I am there. I am there in dwarfed Bonzais or rotund Baobabs. I know the lonely survivors of windblown shores and peerless giants whose spires soar in the rainforest, and I live in the grace of palms in sandy places. I am the protector of their living essence, the birthright of their nature. I know them all.
I was there before you felled sturdy oaks to timber Albion’s ships of conquest, and I am still in the bones of Phoenician cedars, the shrunken copse once forest, sacrificed for temples and palaces of vain potentates. In haunted graveyards of slain Sequoias, empty groves of mahogany and teak, ghostly stumps of ebony or cypress, all denied the right of natural presence, I am there too.
To the ring of the axe, our corpses became your milestones: fenceposts of stolen lands, utility poles, trestles, and ties that spanned the globe. We were even in the machines of execution, your cross and gallows. Our sacrifice gave fire to your hearth, fruits to your table, joy to your children, and we were home to creatures of earth and sky, for birds to nest, a place for your dogs to mark or cats to climb. All these, still in nature’s balance, we gave.
With roaring chainsaws you became deaf, a plunderer, razing Amazon’s green lung, or clear-cutting mountainsides of virgin timber, living growth that was there, in the Garden, before Adam. You still defile our sylvan beauty with a scorn that plagues our planet. Daily, my forests are pulped to print news, or the ads, seen once then carted to landfills. Corporations lumber without restraint for the objects of your desire, gouging livid wounds that never heal.
I gave you nature’s quota, but you took more. You ate from the Tree of Knowledge but did not become wise, and your Tree of Life became unfruitful when you worshipped The Money Tree, a corrupt growth, grafted on roots of avarice.
Do we not bleed when we are cut, do we not Live just as you, within our own cosmic destiny? In the mournful music of the age can you not hear our prayer? Listen! Let it lead you to simple wisdom, taking only what nature can replace, protecting all the rest, from quaking Aspen to the proud Douglas Fir. And it will repay the debt you owe since you joined us here on earth.
For extinction is eternal Hell, and yours would come just after ours.
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