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OUT OF THE GARDEN
He says, “You know it is long past time to stop blaming the poor snake, it wasn’t his fault and when you stop and think about it, he told no lies. And what makes you think that he had any idea of the consequences of the offer. will you admit snakes are as sentient as we…
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PERIPHERAL VISION
Open your eyes. What do you see? The sky Close your eyes. What do you see? Nothing Then open your eyes. What do you see? The sky Close your eyes. What do you see? Nothing Now open your eyes. What do you see? The sky and a large hawk…
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ANGELS
She says sometimes an angel will appear, and you won’t know it. Driving US 1 out of Narragansett, the map says you are close to the sea. You cannot smell the salt air, there is no scent of cod or clam, there is only faith. The waitress in the Newport Café wears the plaid shirt…
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CRIMES AGAINST WORDS
I spent considerable time this morning murdering my darlings, though I am convinced the time would have been better spent hunting down old Quiller-Couch, but his advice given, he had left town. It wouldn’t have been an issue, really but in my damned manuscript, I had a gun early on. It was just to be…
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REFLECTION
Just once on the Shinkansen Tokyo to Osaka I chose to sit on the rearward facing seat just once to see where I had been without care of what lay ahead.
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NARA PARK
He sits, head so far above, a muted gold, on the giant altar the incense rising up his chest and clouding the eyes of the slow parade of supplicants who bow, recite remembered bits of sutra, or just pause in the semi-silence of the park. They are all seekers, but it is only the few lingering…
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TAKING
You can take my sight, but my mind will still see what it must, and my fingers will become eyes. You can take my hearing, I will imagine what I must, and my eyes will become ears. You can take my tongue, but my body will shout what I must, and my hands will speak…
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DREAMING MAUI
I found it on a map this morning. I had been there once before but wasn’t looking, so I missed it I suppose. It is a place where poetry is born, where it wells up out of the earth, seeping across the landscape, casting an enticing light. It is a magical place to which few…
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RAGA BADVA
Look behind the number, past the curtain that shields from your eyes its magic – it is there the singularity of life sheds its clothes, and what you grasp so tightly is no more than the idea of dawn, the concept of death. You must dig the grave to that certain depth so that should…
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COMPARISONS
It was Henry Miller who said that the principal difference between a sage and a preacher is one thing: gaiety, and I suppose the same could be said of the difference between the monk and the wealthy man. It was in a small temple nestled in a courtyard of three office towers in the heart of…