Note: Beta edtions of Mural Gazer stories at MuralGazer.ca
…when he saw his mother’s purse, sitting on the kitchen counter that day of his downfall, he froze, a tightrope walker quavering, struggling to regain his balance. The moral math was simple: He craved his cola; his mother had deprived him of the sugary libations that made life oh so sweet; tit-for-tat, he would deprive her of enough grocery money to buy himself a pleasure-sustaining supply of Kik. Still, he wavered. Get a Kik out of life, his jingoistic nature crooned; get a kick in the arse with a pointy shoe, a fatherly voice from up on high threatened. He teetered on the edge for a moment, then…
Harry glanced through the window, out into the garden, where his mother was busy weeding and pruning. Opportunity had presented itself, the thirst was upon him, he could either take his chance or leave it, and not expect another any time soon.
Still, he resisted the gravity of his yearning, aghast. How could he even think something so dastardly, so cunning, as to steal from his own mother… As he excoriated, himself his body slipped into an altered state, beyond the pale of ordinary consciousness. He witnessed sadly, as if in a dream, his hand reach out, fingers scrabbling like spider’s legs, prying open her purse’s lips, rummaging its contents for her wallet. He pulled it out. His breathing quickened and eyes widened as he riffled through the week’s house money, a sheaf of bills neatly sorted into their coloured denominations…
It’s the dawn Of a new day In an old era In the same old way.
It’s the cycle renewed Again and again without end A ceaseless iteration Of nation against nation Of despair strangling hope Shoots of hatred Tendrils of fear A choking underbrush Infesting our gardens of Eden
Who was it said We must kill, and kill, and kill Until all are dead Who would become invasive species? Whose god roared that battle cry Under the glaring sun Denying even the possibility of innocence Declaring even the unborn ‘Enemies of our state’ Infected with murderous intent? Vermin only fit to hate?
Bloodlines. Worm like veins Through our sacred soils Rooting the detritus That defines us. Ancient scrolls And chiseled texts Implacable as tombstones.
Lead on! Lead on! my old, best friend, beyond the very end of this leash we both are tethered to.
Lead on! Lead on! Even though we do not know, and dare not say, exactly where we’re going… Even though there is no point within the compass of our ancient souls to suggest one way or another— no brilliant star, no station of the sun for us to fix upon. Whichever way we face, that becomes the direction of our knowing.
And yet you pant, and strain, and snuffle, and sniff, as if there were some secret (just around the bend or crouching under some bush) that makes sense of it all.
Lead on! Lead on! Beyond the very edge of this—our flattened earth— and be assured, for what it’s worth, that I must surely follow, and you are not alone.
Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
Oh! How I wish the letters Of the word Would dissolve Into the very thing
How I would delight In that incandescence, That essence emerging In my bleary dawn, Like souls coalescing Out of nothingness… Engendered by the welling sun, And the risen mist, And the stilled air that I breathe.
Oh! How I would sigh And beg the pending breeze To hold off—just a moment more And not disturb this glowing dream… This fantasy that must always be Precursor to despair.
Acts of Kindness
I have to admit
It was kind of strange
for me to be hunched
at the edge of the lawn
like that…
On a Wednesday morning
After a Tuesday night-before
In a neighbourhood where
every sunrise-after
lulls the Land of Suburbanites
Into their becalmed state
Of being.
Of wakefulness.
It should not have surprised me
when a Good Samaritan approached
His footsteps cause for alarm!
I mean, what could I say?
“Just a minor heart attack.
The merest constriction of the chest
A barely measurable acceleration of pulse…
No need for an ambulance.”
What other excuse could I invent
that wouldn’t besmirch my reputation?
Why else would I be staring
into the dirt, beneath the parted blades of grass
As if I could see something down there,
couched in layers of smothering soil
waiting to be discovered by archeology
Even through the final act…
The ceaseless progress of decomposition.
“You okay?” he said
Summoning me to the brink…
To my moment of truth…
I could not tell a lie… could I?
Couldn’t make up something
that would make sense
of my peculiarities.
“Just watching a worm,” I said.
“Burrowing into the earth…”
“Found him on the sidewalk…”
“They always do that when it rains…”
He looked at me as if
I might have been another species…
Or the long-lost member of an extinct tribe.
“Feast for the robins.” he might have hinted.
And who was I to argue?
Playing at God,
Absolving myself
of the inevitable sins
we’re committed to
By being alive?
CraigSpenceWriter.ca
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Ptero was going about his business one evening, searching for nuts, berries and tasty insects to eat, when – whoosh – Bubo, the owl swept down and snatched him up in her talons.
He struggled and squirmed, but she held him fast in her powerful grip, and he knew he could not survive long. He had to think quickly if he was ever to see his nest again.
‘Bubo!’ he gasped. ‘Bubo, why would you bother eating a scrawny little squirrel like me. Winter has just ended, and I’m not much more than a skeleton right now. Let me go, and I promise to return to the very branch you snatched me from in three month’s time. Then I will be plump and delicious, and make a mouthful… er, a beakful.’
Because squirrels always keep their word, Bubo agreed to Ptero’s request, and returned on the appointed evening to find his prey, plump and well-fed, on the same branch where they’d first met. Bubo swooped down and carried him off again.
‘Bubo,’ Ptero pleaded this time. ‘Why would you tear me to pieces and eat me up now, when it is the season I am preparing to make many meals for you?’
‘Explain yourself, and be quick about it, for I am hungry,’ Bubo demanded.
‘It’s springtime, and I must mate. Soon there will be many of me scampering amongst the branches for you to catch and eat. Three more months, and I promise to return so you can me carry off a third time. But by then there will be many more like me for you to feast on.’
To Bubo this made good sense, so he returned Ptero to their favourite branch. ‘I shall see you in three months my little friend, then – sadly – I will have to gobble you up, for that is my nature,’ she said as she flew off.
So Ptero met a mate, and they had a family, and after the three months past he returned for Bubo to catch again.
‘What am I to say now,’ Ptero fretted, shivering with fright. He thought, and thought, but no new ideas came to him before Bubo glided silently overhead and snatched him up a third time.
‘So Ptero,’ the owl said as they flew away, ‘what reason are you going to give me tonight to keep me from my dinner?’
Ptero had nothing to offer, so he went limp in Bubo’s talons, closed his eyes, and prepared for his grisly fate.
‘Before I devour you, let me ask a question,’ Bubo said.
Eager to postpone what was surely coming, even for a heartbeat – and I can tell you, a squirrel’s heart beats very quickly when he is afraid – Ptero replied, ‘Please ask, and I will do my best to answer.’
‘What time of year is it, my scrumptious little friend?’
Now, to Ptero this seemed a silly question. But he pretended to be puzzled, and took as many wing beats as he possibly could to answer. ‘It is the season of long days and warm weather,’ he said at last.
‘Indeed,’ Bubo agreed. ‘It is also the season of abundance, is it not, when an owl can catch more food on a single night’s hunt than she could eat in a week.’
‘True,’ Ptero agreed.
‘And what season will arrive in three month’s time?’
‘Why that would be the season of falling leaves and withering fruit.’
‘So what might a wise owl do – and there is no such thing as an owl who-hoo-hoo isn’t wise – what might a wise owl do with a bit of prey, if her stomach and larder were already full, but winter was on its way?’
Ptero hesitated, fearful of making a guess. But he finally screwed up enough courage to say, ‘He might return a little squirrel to its branch and come back again in three month’s time, when his larder and belly will both be empty?’
‘Ah!’ Bubo hooted happily. ‘Excellent idea. Why, if you weren’t shaped like a plump little rodent, I might mistake you for one of my kind.’
And so for many seasons Ptero and Bubo have been getting together for their pleasant flights, and neither has figured out in all that time why one should eat the other. You could even say they’ve become good friends.
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This morning’s sun dawned on me, a bleed of light in the ambient air, impressing with its metaphor of glory.
And I asked: Is this the shining way… the path?
And I asked: How many dawns have bathed me in their blare of blinding light?
And I say: Dawning’s beyond conception.
I don’t remember my mother’s face, from that first day she held me swaddled in her arms. My earliest memories are assembled pastiches retrieved from jumbled collections, fading images in forgotten albums... Brothers, sister and me in defining moments picked from the scrabble of growing up... Growing old.
And I ask: Is this the past I wanted? My only possible inception?
And I say: Their love was good enough to endure a lifetime.
And what of my own sons, misunderstanding, misunderstood, good as me at finding fault? Is their's a future untold, stories in the making, or a history already that I’m to blame for?
In the midst of this day’s dawning a flight of geese honked and gabbled up our street; our suspiring phalanx of cedars, arbutus, and Douglas fir stood firm, and jagged against the sky; a frog croaked in the yard, awakening my admiration for ants, and beetles… and lowly worms.
My morning mantra harkened, urged me to complete The Circle…
‘We are defined by what we are-not As much as by Who we think we-are,’
The moment I sense my self I disappear, become part of the very nature that shapes my solitude... my joy, my fear.
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Some people walk right by Gwen’s place, and don’t even notice. They might be thinking about mortgages, or family problems, or jobs… or the latest national fixation, COVID-19. But Kirsten and friends weren’t distracted by any of that. The cold bright air made them happy, and the flutter of dark-eyed juncos at a feeder across the street… Until they were startled by the great, big, green Grinch nailed to the post under Gwen’s balcony. “Won’t steal my Christmas,” Kirsten pouted angrily, and everyone on the line agreed, even though Mrs. P, their daycare teacher, had to laugh. Snowmen, elves, and Santa himself crowded Gwen’s yard, too, fastened to sticks in the surrounding brick planter and tacked to the clapboard siding of her house. So Kirsten felt pretty sure that – as always – the Grinch would come to be a believer, too. It was Mrs. P who pointed to the painted rocks nestled in the grass along the planter wall. Kirsten figured they must be nice rocks, judging by their colours and shapes. “Life is short, eat dessert first,” Mrs. P read one. Kirsten agreed! “Less todos; more todays!” advised another. Kirsten’s favourite, though, was the one with the angel on it that said, “Believing is seeing!” Even though Mrs. P said “whoever wrote it got it wrong way round.”
About this Moment
Our neighbour, Gwen, loves Christmas, and goes all-out with decorations every year. This Moment was inspired when a gaggle of daycare kids all hanging onto a cord, with their daycare teacher in the lead, stopped to wonder at Gwen’s display. All I had to hand was my iPhone, so I took some pictures with that, and got one or two that were good enough to use. This is a fictional rendition. None of the names are real, and actual events have been interpreted to fit. Hope you enjoy.
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He’d never dived off Prospect Rock before, only jumped, legs and arms flailing, yelling like a banshee, anticipating the cold slap of the lake’s surface, and that alarming transition between this world and that… the world of summer sky, filled with clouds and birds and planes, and vastnesses; into that startling nether world of cold water pressing in, stifling your voice, forcing your limbs to straighten out, and your body into the shape of a dagger, plunged into an unknown. He’d never taken that shape, mid-air, hands clasped above – or, rather below – his head, feet pointed up into the sky, mind focused on the precise moment when he’d enter the water, not with a splash, but with a surgical penetration of the translucence between now and then, past and future tenses. Diving is a conscious act; jumping a wild, screeching, childish enthusiasm. You prepare to dive, imagine yourself arcing through space like a cormorant, parting the waters as if your steepled fingers could find the interstices between molecules, then point your flexing body into its precise curve through the fluidity of its new medium gracefully, missing the jagged formations imagined beyond the phenomenon revealed by light.
