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CLOSE ENOUGH TO HEAR
We sit around the small tablesglad to be out of the sunwhose midday glare seemsto blind the drivers slowlyapproaching the Jetty Park lot. A family chatters, the childrenlaughing at nothing, at everything,and nearby a dog lays outdreaming of a good walkand dinner, hoping for scraps. We can hear the waterof the inlet, the waves breakingonto…
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TREASURES
I keep in my pocketall the treasures of my family,all of the keepsakes from my mother,and those from my fathergiven to me when they died. I would share them with you,but they are highly personaland would not mean much to onewho never knew my parentsor my step brother, the one with whom I have not…
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TOZAN’S TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN 正法眼蔵 四十九
When you are askedto climb to the topof the mountain and lookin all directionsand report who you see,if you see no one, howwill you respond?Close your eyesand tell me,am I still here? A reflection on case 49 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
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IMMIGRATION
When you got off the boatyou must have been scared,but getting away from that lifemade the fear bearable. I have no idea how you endedup in West Virginia, it wasn’tat all like Lithuania, and Jewsmight have had two heads I imagine. But you all made do, madea community, invited othersand were tolerated if odd,and I…
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PECULIAR?
I grant you cats can be peculiarbut they have one significantadvantage over all other pets,except maybe hamstersand gerbils, for when youneed someone to talk to,to unload your problems on,to try and wrestle witha thorny issue of public policyor geopolitical intrigueand that night has swallowedeveryone you know, anyoneyou might dare disturbin the hours after midnight,you may…
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FORWARD
As a child I was quite fondof staring into the futurefor hours on end, whenmy parents told meto get my head out of booksand go outside to play. I never could see muchin my staring, thoughtI was probably myopicbut my parents said Icouldn’t need glasses, theycost far too muchfor someone my age. I realize now,…
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RETIRED
God sits at his easel, brush in handand thinks about the butterflyalighting on the oak.This man would rather paintthe nightmare of hell, buthe has been cast out andhis memory has grown dim.He remembers being a small childamused by the worm peeringfrom soil in a fresh rain and howwhen he split it, both halveswould slither awayin…
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HE WAS
He was a writer. That is what he told people who asked what he did. Although he said it was what, no who he was. He said he wanted to be the sort of person that Stalin feared, a man of ideas, maybe someday, in an Alexieian world, charged with a crime of holding an…
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ORIGIN
I am told that I should writeabout my origins, that is the stuffthat long poems are made of, orrather the soil from which they bloom. I have written about my birth motherand visited her grave in West Virginiaseen those of my grandparents, meta cousin, I’ve written all of that. So its time to write aboutmy…
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GENSHA’S THREE VEHICLES 正法眼蔵 四十語
Describe this momentwithout use of word or sound –see where you arewith eyes pressed tightly closed,hear a song with utter silence,taste the pure mountain airreach out and touchthat which has no shapeor form, no essenceand you sitin the middleof reality. A reflection on case 45 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo Koans (True Dharma Eye)
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an old writer and his words 