The Diddly Squib Pox

A DETAIL OF NANCY EKHOLM BURKERT’S ILLUSTRATION FOR EDWARD LEAR’S “THE SCROOBIOUS PIP.”

Written March, 2021

The Diddly Squib Pox

"The Scroobious Pip went out one day

When the grass was green, and the sky was grey.

Then all the beasts in the world came round

When the Scroobious Pip sat down on the ground.

     The cat and the dog and the kangaroo

     The sheep and the cow and the guineapig too--

     The wolf he howled, the horse he neighed

     The little pig squeaked and the donkey brayed,

     And when the lion began to roar

     There never was heard such a noise before.

     And every beast he stood on the tip

     Of his toes to look a the Scroobious Pip.

At last they said to the Fox - "By far,

You're the wisest beast! You know you are!

Go close to Scroobious Pip and say,

Tell us all about yourself we pray-

For as yet we can't make out in the least

If you're Fish or Insect, or Bird or Beast."

The Scroobious Pip looked vaguelyy round

And sang these words with a rumbling sound-

     Chippetty Flip; Flippetty Chip;-

My only name is the Scroobious Pip...."

(Edward Lear)

There once was an island whose folk were jaded and bored. Their land, though once rich with natural beauty and endless resources, was tired and abused. The people had forgotten how to tease food from the earth or become too lazy to do so. They had plundered the soil, poisoning it and depleting its once-abundant productivity. Rivers ran laden with effluent, the rains unleashed acrid torrents, and the winds whipped up fierce storms of fire and smoke. The seas all around pressed in on the shore with pounding waves and the highest tides in living memory. The air became a cauldron and the forests began to burn out of control. 

When the people became paralysed by a strange inertia that overtook their will to counter these rapid, worrying changes in their lives, they started to believe they were done for. It was then that things took a much bleaker, way scarier turn for the worse. Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, came a pox that leaked a virulent venom and started striking down the vulnerable - the old, the sick, the tormented among them. They say it came from 'nowhere', out of the wild, from the deepest jungle one day, on the breath of a diddly squib (esquibus diddlus silvestris). This semi-mythical creature got loose causing havoc, borne by the wind, spreading fear faster, and pestilence further, than wildfire ever was able, like a dragon of old.

The islanders were so startled, so stricken by fear, they panicked, they did. Their leaders assembled and set down laws to deal with the dubious squib pox, to exterminate the beast, that were so unprecedented, so extreme, so draconian, so disproportionate, so lunatic, so farcical, so barking mad, that the people piped up, almost in unison, OK, enough, we will comply, but just for a while, until we bend back into shape. We will stay home and wait things out, we will cover up and keep away from others and bathe devotedly - as long as you deliver us food and wine and satellite news, oh... and more toilet roll and soap. And please, get rid of that diddly squib and its pestilential pox. It is driving us crazy!

So, the lofty leaders got together, by satellite. They were guided by their geneticist-in-chief, a lauded man beyond reproach, and his trusty epidemiologists in the Fatality Allocation Review Team, the esteemed FART. They sat and conferred with the government and came to a conclusion. They must exercise their power, act, conclusively, exert control, direct the deaths. They must stand up definitively to the diddly squib pox (which, in hindsight, became universally labelled as EDS2020). They would throw the kitchen sink at it, dirty washing and all. In a fierce flash of lightning, a mere instant, they would come up with a magic potion that would melt the pox away, stopping the manic spread of EDS2020 and protecting the whole island. However, there were two catches, the first proviso being that treatment would need to be universal and the second - because eradication was out of the question - it would have to be regularly administered, with updates forever. There was no guarantee that the magic potion would work since this was a novel concoction developed in a laboratory and did not use the tools of Nature. Such a daring sleight of hand, such an act of sorcerous wizardry had never been hysterically undertaken before, but this didn't matter because the people were sore afraid, suffering from panic overload. It was untested over time in real life conditions and nobody could say how safe or efficacious it would prove to be, not even the geneticist-in-chief, lauded though he was. But magical thinking was deemed necessary to defeat this fearsome foe. Time was of the essence. "We are smart, we hearty FART", the leaders chanted in unison.

So it was that the fear-stricken populace lined up in an endless slow-moving procession of possession to receive their dose of potion - a shot in the arm that was to become the first of many aiming to deal the fatal death blow to the devious, evasive pox. But with each dose delivered, the pox became emboldened and invigorated. It mutated and variegated. When and where would it all end? Perhaps - a few among the many mused - it would have been better, wiser to leave the beast well alone, unconfronted, unteased into lashing out.

Revelation

First comes the ploy,

then the narrative spin.

Revelation scatters the pigeons

and revisionism rushes in.

Spring Fever

Can we please....?

.... just turn around,

look beyond our noses,

beyond imagining, dreaming,

and get on with doing...

dinner parties, family picnics,

messing about with friends,

musical concerts, partisan crowds,

noise, applause, frenzied excitement,

gawping at volcanoes, 

waterfalls, the green ray, 

sipping margaritas, the sun sinking

into vermilion ocean,

bustling markets, full-faced smiles,

bawling with laughter

at badly-told jokes in poor taste,

holding hands, bear hugs, loving glances.

Let's put this year of winter behind us,

open our hearts and eyes,

smell the roses,

and live, for each other.

It is Spring, high time 

to see some green shoots, 

listen to the wind,

for the world is born anew.

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.

The White House, Margaree

If pictures could tell stories...

then I would love to hear the history of this white farmhouse, located right off the Cabot Trail in the lower Margaree Valley, just south of Fordview. The views across the broad river valley are sumptuous, especially with a full colour array of fall foliage. The sculptured old apple tree laden with plump red fruit raises her outstretched arms skyward as if in proclamation, perhaps in anguish. 

The river glides on by as it has always done in its patient path to the embracing sea. One would never guess from the far vantage point over the other side of the valley toward the house that it now stands abandoned, in disrepair, moulding, sagging, fraying, creaking. The mountainsides it is sheltered by stand sturdy, strong, ablaze with autumnal vigour.

What merriment rang out in the dining room in Thanksgivings and Christmases past? What joy was beheld by the pastoral prospects? What spirited ghosts inhabit the wood-panneled bedrooms? What foods did they grow and what animals roamed the barnyard?

The bumpy backroads of Margaree (and the length and breadth of Cape Breton Island beyond) lead past many such homesteads entangled in vegetation and throttled by trees, soon to be swallowed up entirely, reverted to wild land, almost without trace of the stories they could tell.