• 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…


  • NANSEN’S AGE 鐵笛倒吹 二十四

    When you enter the hall which seat will you take? Your seat is determined by how long you have walked the Way, how long has it been. If you can measure the time that marks your entry sit at the far end for the honored seat is reserved for the ancients who enter the Way…


  • REQUIREMENT

    She moves with the fluidity that suggests she has been trained as a dancer, though she denies it, says that she has no interest in dance, barely tolerates music and then only because it sometimes is a requirement. She smiles, though it doesn’t seem at all natural to her, more another thing she does because…


  • AROUND EVERY CORNER

    They hide in corners, and you think you can see them, but you cannot be certain for they are vague and could be no more than wishes, but belief is sufficient. As you grow older, the number of corners grow and a universe of but eight corners is now itself tucked in a corner of…


  • 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…


  • 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…


  • 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…


  • 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…


  • TIPPING THE WATER BOTTLE 無門關 四十

    These few words gathered neatly on a scrap of simple paper, what do you call it? Answer carefully for you response may carry the keys to the doors of Mount Tai-i. Better still, upend the water bottle, watch the ink and water form a gentle pool into which no pebble drops. A reflelction on case…


  • 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…