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NO MONSTER HERE
Macbeth had a witches problem, but that hardly made him unique. It’s true that Scottish witches are more difficult to deal with than those of much of the rest of Western Europe, something to do with being under English dominion for so damned long that Erse is a nearly forgotten tongue, but you’d think a…
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ECLIPSED
Tomorrow the moon will be full of herself hiding behind the cape of the afternoon sun. It is of no matter the moon would say if asked, for this doesn’t happen often. She would dazzle our eyes if she dared show her ancient face but not tomorrow, not this once in a blue moon.…
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OH, NOAH
None of us can remember what was here before. We can search for clues, develop elaborate surmises and find telling relics from which we can conclude this or that, with a certitude the gods would surely mock. But our field of vision is restricted, our memories equally so, and we are left with one certainty,…
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LOST, AGAIN
It would help, she said, if you would stop thinking of yourself as Sisyphus and all of life as the rock, you might actually, one day, begin to enjoy what you do. It would help, he said, if I could be like a great blue heron, grow wings and take to a summer sky leaving…
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LUNA BECKONS
The perigee moon hangs heavily over the city, clinging to the horizon as though it wishes to flee deep into the night, turning away the attention in inevitably draws. We are pulled toward it by some deeply felt force that we know we dare not question, for we must honor the moon’s secrets as we…
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CROW DANCE
Sunday They gather in the trees remarkably silent one speaks their morning prayers and they return home. Monday Only three arrive to commentate our morning walk. We appreciate the silence. Tuesday There is a reason for all sentient creatures but the crow tests our credulity. Wednesday A wintered branch breaks under the weight of the…
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FROM THE BEGINNING
Pangu* came by for a visit the other night. He tends to drop by uninvited. “Hate to call ahead,” he says, “it ruins the surprise.” He’s aged a bit since the last visit, and I told him he looked different. “It’s just a look. It’s the same old me, but I tend to scare people. So…
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FERRYMAN
He comes to me in the dead hour of night the old shriveled man poling his poor ferry across the river of my dreams. He comes when the moon has fled and the stars fall mute and he beckons me holding out the copper coins stating his fare. He comes to me, beckoning, and for…
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NIGHT CHANGES
Night alters sound in ways we can never precisely determine. It is possible our hearing changes with the flight of the sun, but the moon scoffs at this premise. A train rattling across the landscape in the heat of day becomes a musical instrument in the relative silence of night, playing a melody that insuates…
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TRYPTICH (HAIKU
shout Yuki Onna I have wandered from my course snow piles at my feet gold Chrysanthemum blooms bright in the summer sun pure water of life a pebble is plucked from the lake, ripples move in, singularity.