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The snail oozes slowly across the gravel floor of the aquarium. He would have you believe his slow progression is normal, for snails have cultivated people to this view for millennia, the easier to go ignored through life. He is comfortable with my staring, turns his back to me and meanders away hoping I will…
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REFLECTIONS
An elk stands at the edge of a placid mountain lake and sees only the clouds of an approaching winter. A black bear leans over the mirrored surface of the lake and sees only the fish that will soon be his repast. The young man draped in saffron robes looks calmly into the water and…
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MADNESS
There are things in life that are quite clearly beyond any rational explanation. Take, as an example, the song that crawls into your head and absolutely refuses to leave. If it were Mozart or Bach it might be excusable, if Beethoven at least reluctantly forgivable, but it is never the great masters. Tonight, it is…
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ONE EVE, NO ADAM
They arrive ones and twos accrete dissolve reform, swell the cacophony grows takes on a joyousness as they ebb and flow; the food disappears the wine the laughter draws you in and you want only to circulate but how with shifting nuclei and then the scheduled end and hours later the last slips away and…
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RIVER CROSSING
We crossed the Hudson this afternoon on a Dutch named bridge in a driving rain so strong you could hear little over the beat of the wipers throwing sheets of water. You wondered why the superstructure was only on the Eastern end. I wondered why they had to have a Dutch name no one can…
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FULL OF IT
He is worried, he says that we will be leaving on a full moon. I remind him that he leaves in two weeks, that this morning’s half-moon will be gone then replaced by its now absent other half. He says it should be full if it’s half now and half a month passes. His statements…
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JUMPING OFF POINT
She says the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her That on a cosmic scale space is curved and no one wants the short straw anyway. She can, of course, read him, a skill she knows is reserved for women and is one of frustration…
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LISTEN TO DIS
She finds dysfunction rather disconcerting and if I don’t agree she will take it as a diss though I would quickly dismiss that idea as disingenuous. But she is prone to discomfort and displaces those around her in moments of dissonance. She does keep her distance, and tries to be dispassionate and so I can…
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
He is four, he announces to all gathered at the extended family table that he will be five soon, in January. It is important that we know this just as it is important that he sit next to his cousin, for boys like he should always sit next to cute girls and sisters don’t count,…
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FIRST PERIOD
They stand impatiently in line chattering, giggling, tittering like so many schoolgirls with secrets they promised to keep to their deaths and have to immediately tell a friend. “Did you hear about Letitia?” one says, and goes on to say she shared her journal with several other girls in the eighth grade. It goes on…
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an old writer and his words 