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LADDER
You have to stop and wonder,the child said, why peoplecan take joy in killing, whypeople can scheme each other,why people can cheat if they can. Birds, the child added, onlytry and scheme people for food,why they cheat for the sakeof cheating, kill for pleasure,yet we say we are the higher species. Perhaps, the child concludes,it…
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WE COULD
We could, if you want,sit in the park on our foldingchairs or better a folded blanketand stare out over the pond,its silver surface shirredby a midday breeze. We could picnic, sandwichesof brie and apples, or for ushummous with tahini anda bottle of chardonnay, carefullypoured into plastic glassesimagining themseles crystal. The dragonflies would ignore us,busy doing…
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DRINKING TEA IN KABUL*
Rockets flash brieflyacross the chilled sky,plumes of smoke, ashcarried offby impending winter. Over the lintel of the entryto the Inter-Continental Hotel Chicago,carved deeply into the marbleEs Salamu Aleikumstaring implacablythrough ponderousbrass framed doorsonto the Miracle Mile.Countless guestspass below itunseeing. My son and Isit across a small tablespilling bits of tapasonto the cloth,laughing lightlyat the young boybathed…
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SNAKE, PRAY FOR US
In a time set aside for mourningwe easily remember those, lovedor despised, taken by age, disease,war or poverty and neglect. But trapped in our isolationwe should also pause and recallthe snake, condemned for offeringknowledge for which we were ill-equipped. Let us not forget the ram,whose only sin was to bein the wrong place at the…
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REAL TIME
He can spend hours on the wooden bench in the small square in the center of the village. There he is but a statue, staring up at the giant clock face that looms over the square from the turret of the Village Hall. He likes to watch the long hand, arrowlike, make its slow, but…
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POSTDICTIONS
In the beginning there wasa void, stasis, dimensionless.I am a point, without sizetaking form only in motion,so too the seat on whichI sit on United flight 951not going from point Ato point B for neithercan exist in motiontranscending time. Each decision setsone me on a path, intoa dimension, dimensionswhile I tread a different pathand I…
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COUPLING
Walking through the art gallery,she frequently pauses to lookat paintings of couples in a baror a cafe, engaged in conversation. I tell her they seem sad, as thoughwhatever romance they hadhas waned, they having grownapart, this a parting of sorts. She laughs and says that I mistakewistfulness for sadness, menso often do, and adds they…
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MONOLOGUE
I would like nothing more thanto have a long conversation with the birds,that there is much they could tell me,much they know that I should understandbut I am the interloper here, and theyhave lost trust in my kind. I watch them closely, trying to discern what I can of their thoughts,but in a flash of wing,…
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I’LL BE SEEING YOU
We live in a zoom world, one we never imagined, and one for which we will never be prepared. But it is our life now, friends and family reduced to pixels, voices disembodied. They tell us this is the new normal, although what is normal about it is beyond logic and comprehension. We believe deeply…
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REFUSE TO RECALL
We have now forgotten whatit is like to take flight, to seek,to finally find a true freedomfrom an always grasping land. Once we did it out of necessity,lives incomplete, prisonerswho committed no crimesave those of thought and faith. Now we only claim to admirethose who seek what weonce did, watch them withmock awe, but deny…
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an old writer and his words 