Endless Rain

Oh for a day without endless rain

One day, just one, for pity’s sake

The grass is like a horse’s mane

The breeze is of a glistening lake

With laundry waiting for the line.

The sun is seldom seen for this late June

And patiently I bide my time

Amid lush trees and fragrant bloom.

I should not mind the rain pounding on my roof

While I watch from the comfort of my covered porch

Though man’s organizing mind in truth

Could wish it came with much less force;

And I look so for the sun’s healing rays

Though I would wish its heat was less extreme

But we are held to account for nature’s ways

By greed and vanity and selfish schemes.

Raging floods in torrents cause banks to burst

Then cruel drought follows in its stead

Drying wells and causing plants to wilt with thirst

Until the garden lays parched and dead.

I remember when spring was long and green,

Summer days were blissful, filled with laughter’s sound

And autumn crisp and golden and serene

Followed by winter’s predictable snow upon the ground

Each season with its purpose and its mark

Has long worked its magic on this tiny star

But must we now endure the chaos however stark?

Have we missed the chance and gone too far?

The Holly Bears a Berry

Nature never ceases to amaze. About 20 years ago I planted a very small holly bush, against my own better judgment and the advice of more experienced gardeners. We are not in the most temperate of climate zones. Here the temperature can be three or four degrees colder in the winter months and three or four degrees hotter in the summer months than even that which is a few kilometers to the south of us. But my little bush has grown and thrived and now stands thick and over four feet in height. It has bloomed abundantly year in and year out… But at most, it has only borne half a dozen dispersed red berries to my great disappointment.

Last fall I happened to be in the Garden Centre where I had purchased this plant those many years ago. While there, I learned that the holly needs both a male and a female bush to produce those absent red berries. Why it had taken me so long to discover, I do not know.

There happened to be one small male plant left on the premises. I bought it and skeptically planted it not too far from the original. Alas, I have just noticed that the original bush is now laden with hundreds, if not thousands, of thick clumps of berries, at this point still green. My excitement rises. I can, almost, hardly wait for the yet to arrive summer to turn to autumn. But for the time being, I will satisfy myself with the delayed arrival of summer and those lovely green berries.

Trauma

Our small village of Warkworth is one of almost constant activity: Maple syrup festivals, fall fairs, art shows, theatre, concerts, street festivals and more. Last night was such an event. The main street was closed. People I had never seen before came out of the woodwork. Children and parents abounded. There was food, music and dancing on the street. It was a true delight.

Now, I consider myself a reasonably good dancer, but by no means one that would win awards. I also consider myself to be a good listener and a fairly quick learner. Both considerations were crushed last night at our village’s street festival in front of a sizeable crowd of onlookers.

Reluctantly, I had offered myself up to learn square dancing because a male was desperately sought after to join the fray. I may have done some square dancing back in public school in the late 1950s. The recollection is only faint at best. I have certainly done Scottish Country dancing in the distant past and became quite accomplished at it. This is not unlike square dancing I had thought. Moreover, line dancing had been a regular entertainment for me and my life partner in the early 1990s. And only a few years ago I had competently joined a happy group of street revelers in dance on May Day in a seaside town in Cornwall, England. Good enough credentials I would have thought.

I was placed with a dance partner on one side of what was, I presumed, a square formation made up of four couples. The very first instruction, if it can be called that, was to – let’s say - “adeline”, (because I don’t remember the exact term and cannot find it on the internet) “to the left”. It would have been helpful if we had been told or even better, shown, what an “adeline” (or whatever) was. However, as the music began, I was quickly hauled to the right! And then, as I presumed I was to proceed in that direction, I was shoved to the left by some older, more experienced and seemingly rather cranky dancer. At one point someone snapped at me to let go of my partner’s hand, as if this should have been eminently obvious to me, and I was shoved inexplicably in another direction. After more such confusion, pushing and sheer bewilderment and frustration, and lacking in any coherent instruction, I fled from the pack to the sidelines and left my dance partner on her dismayed own.

Dancing should be fun. This was not – at least not for me. I did enjoy the animated belly dancing that followed, although as a bemused observer.