General Observations II

                            Individualism

Moseying along the riverside footpath

underneath the summer tree canopy

keeping the old fox terrier company

shortly after dawn,

we came upon a flock of maybe a couple dozen ducks

who’d been up in some bush on a steep rise

between the footpath and River Road,

foraging for food, I suppose,

but maybe for some other reason.

I’m no expert on the Anatidae family’s species, after all.

Detecting our approach, one let out five rapid quacks,

and they proceeded to decamp from the parkland

and retreat into the river.

Some took off flying immediately, flapping furiously,

some of these quacking frantically, some not.

Others waddled at top speed, then flapped themselves into the air,

some quacking, some not.

Others started slowly, then sped up, then flew,

some quacking, some not.

Others hustled on foot all the way to the river,

some quacking, some not.

One insouciant female, however,

strolled at a leisurely waddle all the way to the riverbank,

paused there, looked at us with disdain,

or insouciance,

or so it seemed to me –

I don’t know if human language

can capture a waterfowl’s attitude, anyway – 

until we were almost upon her,

and then eased herself gracefully through the air into the water.

They all looked about the same to me,

but they obviously weren’t.

I wonder how we look to them?

                      River Rats

I’ve walked along the Waikato River often

since shifting to Hamilton from Otorohanga in 1993 –

at first by myself and then with my dog –

first along the western walkway stretch

from across from either Radnor Street or the archery range

to as far north as I had time to go,

later over a loop on both sides of the river

between the Fairfield and Claudelands bridges,

and then back and forth along it in Day’s Park.

In all that time I never saw a river rat

until July 2011, when I saw two

about a week apart.

It had been raining hard, on and off, for several days,

and the river was high and fast,

reaching almost to the riverside footpath.

I saw the first rat scuttle

from the side of the footpath into the river,

swim out to where a tree’s branch dipped into the rising water,

and climb up it into the tree,

where I lost sight of it.

The second rat I saw also saw us first and dove into the river,

but since it had no convenient tree branch handy,

it dove under the surface.

I watched for a while but never saw it resurface.

They must’ve floated down with the flood from upriver,

because with so many dogs almost always at that park,

most of them, unlike mine, being water dogs,

it’d be no place for a river rat

to call home.

                             Not Shaving

I decided in 1965 that I didn’t want to shave any more.

It just seemed to me to be

pointlessly stupid, physically irritating, and expensive.

In 2014 it amuses me to see

that full beards, not those idiotically narcissistic sculpted wanker ones,

are coming increasingly into fashion

among professional athletes in a variety of sports.

It’s somewhere between bemusing and sad to me that,

being just a fashion and not an expression of underlying principle,

it will have its season and then be replaced

by some other trend.

              Just Blotted Out

A juvenile mantis

maybe two cm long

was climbing the woodwork moulding

around the door

to one of my lounge’s

storage cupboards.

I squooshed it.

Then I thought about what it’d be like

to have my own life similarly squooshed.

It’d make no difference, I concluded.

Endless sleep is endless sleep.

                  Natural Nature

It aint natural;

you’ve felt that.

Or maybe it is,

depending on who you are.

After all, everyone just knows

what’s natural and what aint.

Don’t we?

Nature is natural,

like a scene of a misty forest

snapped with a digital camera

and disseminated on facebook.

What aint natural, some say,

is stuff people think up and make,

like artificial sweeteners

or pharmaceutical medicines,

or chemical fertilisers,

although even Natural Health remedies

and organic fertilisers

are composed of chemicals,

as is everything else in the universe.

Fuck that!

We all just know, we can just tell

what’s natural and what aint.

But people are part of nature.

Our DNA is pretty much the same stuff

as the DNA of a blue whale or a beaver,

only ours, like the beavers’, impels us to make things,

so everything we make must be natural,

because everything in the universe is.

Our nature also impels us to make things up,

to imagine and invent bullshit along with pollution,

which means that even what’s supernatural

is actually natural, too.

        Ecological Repercussions?

Vegans mean well and are mostly good people,

but what environmental niche

and what environmental impact

would cattle have today

if set free and released into the wild

after more than ten millennia

of domestication?

I sure as shit don’t know.

                  Summertime!

It amazes me

and makes me feel hollowly lonely

that most of the people

whom I’ve heard mention it

deeply love summer

and consider it to be,

as the seasons go,

the mutt’s nuts,

and their favourite time of year.

                   Doctors & Empathy

Not every doctor I’ve encountered

has been arrogant and domineering –

what they commonly call

having the God thing –

just most.

I’ve had three as close relatives,

and for the past few years

I’ve been picking up

the occasional lump of dosh

playing patients

in GP-registration practical exams

and in mock exams they use for training.

A med-biz cliché maintains

that a GP sees a heart,

whilst a surgeon sees a pump.

Well, the two surgeons I’ve known intimately

have both been astonishingly insensitive people,

sure enough,

but I’d estimate that eight out of ten

of the GP-registration candidates

in whose training I’ve assisted

have had about as much of an

aptitude for empathy

as I have for diamond-cutting.

               Academic Prose

These people with pee-aitch-dees

who either believe

that what they write

would lack credibility

if it isn’t as turgid and impenetrable

as they can make it,

or who just don’t know or care

how boring they’re making

really interesting and even important stuff

for others,

do no favours

for the advance

of the life of the mind

or the quality of civilisation.

          It Could’ve Been Worse

On the subject of superficialities,

since I was an adolescent

I’ve always wanted a striped shirt

with a white collar and cuffs,

but have somehow managed to do without one

throughout my long life

without suffering unduly

for that reason,

at least.

        Tackiness and Suchlike

I thought that the courtroom squabble

between some of BB King’s children

and his manager and care-giver

over the ownership of some of his jewellery

and other such things

while he was still fucking alive, for shit sake!,

was more than a bit on the tacky side.

I hope that I’m saving my daughters

from similar expeditions into tastelessness

by not owning any jewellery or suchlike

myself.