Becalmed

Becalmed

Ah, to slip softly

into that stilled summer sea,

to glide away, swimming

midst silky seaweeds,

to let sundry stresses

seep away from the skin

as the salty tang

cleanses, energizes.

The rising sun sparkles,

the fresh water becalms.

Serenade to the Stars

The earth lets loose a forlorn flood of tears,

Human lives founder on elemental fears.

The world we knew not solid as it seems,

Eyes open now from puffy clouds of dreams.

They look up to the stark night sky ablaze

To marvel at that arcing trail, the Milky Way;

Mercury glows dimly beside bold Mars

As the pond's spring peepers serenade the stars.

Cocooning At Home - All Together Now!

Here we are, on this blustery grey day of pelting rain, cocooned at home. It is a great day to be so cocooned; we have power and so heat and light, we have food supplies, we have our cosy home, communication with the outside world, and our magnificent view out over the cove to the open Atlantic beyond is still there, albeit a litlle blurry through the rain-streaked windows. In truth, it is always a great day to be cocooned at home. With the weathers forever in flux, the scene is constantly changing. Tomorrow will be such a revelation when the sun comes out again and the light shimmers on the water and the snow dazzles with effusive brilliance. We will step outside and inhale the fresh salty, seaweedy tang on the breeze.

In truth, we have been cocooning for decades, sheltering from the ill winds that blow in the turmoil of gathering storms. For a decade, we escaped the city by cocooning in rented homes on the Niagara Escarpment; for two decades, we escaped the encroaching populace of the Golden Horseshoe by cocooning in our first purchased home - a farm on 55 acres, no less, tucked away in the Northumberland Hills; and then we escaped encroaching industrial agriculture by selling the farm and buying a smaller home on the Atlantic Ocean on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. Further east we cannot go without falling into the sea, and so here it is that we will cocoon for the coming decades, without losing our social spirit. One year is almost in the books already. We had not envisaged missing the community of friends and fellowship in the hills as we do, but we will make amends by visiting when circumstances are more conducive. 

We are still getting to know community around here and remind ourselves that it took many years to establish strong social bonds in Ontario. Cape Breton Island is of a size that encourages cultural and social interaction as well as appreciation of beauty in nature and the great outdoors. A nascent local community built around food and farming is a very timely development in this time of cocooning. With so many people at home, it is vital that farmers and producers step up to service their local community by providing fresh, wholesome food close to cocoons. Wild animals live within a territory or environmental niche. Butterflies forage for food and produce their honey within a small localized area. We should adapt their ways!

The present cocooning of an entire populace in each community, region, in most countries is an unprecedented, extraordinary effort to protect health by containing the spread of contagion. Perversely - from our cocoons - it draws us together in common cause. By and large, we get it, grasping that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. For once in our lives, we all get to pull together in mutual aid, by helping those less able to look after themselves. Forget the survival of the fittest of neo-Darwinism; Darwin knew very well that our survival is more a question of adaptation than of competition. There will be casualties and fallout. Many among us will be ill, many around the world will die, and many things we took for granted will be wiped off the menu, almost overnight, never to return. Not to be under-estimated, this will be an extended, vital change in our lives that will test our resolve, one that, nonetheless, should be embraced with compassion, civility... and cocooning. All together now.