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WHOSE FAULT?
You lay on the lanai paversin the shadow of the tableunder the watchful eyeand ever prodding pawof the cat into whose territoryyou have so boldly encroached.You say that it is not the faultof your kind that ours were evictedfrom the Garden, and of courseyou are correct, but it no longerreally matters, does it, allof us,…
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CRANING
I wait patiently for the wingsto move, as though attachedto a butterfly slowly emergingfrom her too brief chrysalis home.I want to feel the air shiftever so gently as shelifts into a cloudless sky.I want to marvel atthe grace she showsswooping overhead,then alighting once again.But I am no God,no origami masterand so my cranes sitwith their…
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FOR RENE
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility… The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein (1936) Cogitodice clatteragainsta cornerof the universe,rolling the bonesof a thousandgenerationsone slidesinto the black holevoida losernextplayerto the lineboxcarsstacked as cordwoodinto the pitrottingthe snakestaresat a halfeaten applehooded eyescloseHawkingpresses keysindicatingchuckling First Published in Ionosphere, Vol. 1, Issue…
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CASTLES
Standing along the stone fencein the late afternoon shadowof Auchnanure Castle, as friendsmade their way up the narrowstone stairs to gaze out overthe Irish field in which we stood.We watched horses in the adjacent fielddash wildly toward us as if saying“damn the old stones, here is the photofor which you came to Ireland.” Orsaying “let…
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FOUR HAIKU
The aging man staresat the passing flock of ducksimagining flight Green Heron looksout over the placid pondsmall fish get nervous Sandhill Cranes watch usstopping to take their picturethey refuse to smile the heat of summerrises off the warming pondducks paddle to shore
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KYOSAN RESPECTFULLY DECLARES IT
If your teacher approachesand asks you how youunderstand the dharmawhat do you say?If you say youunderstand nothingof the dharmahe will frown butif you sit on the cushionand stare at the wallin silence he will smile. A reflection on Case 90 of the Book of Equanimity (従容錄, Shōyōroku)
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AGAIN, FROM THE TOP
How many years had it been?Neither of them wanted to count,each said they had moved on,neither knowing where on was.Yet when by chance they met againneither could say why it had ended,but each had been certain it wasthe other who had ended it, much,so very much to their surprise.That was always how it had been,each…
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ACROSS A BORDER
I can only begin to imagine, vicariously,what it is like to cross the borderinto the land of deafness, hear all you knewfade and garble, need vision to seewhat a speaker is saying, wonder whysongs you thought you knew nowhave lyrics you do not recognize at all.My wife is on this journey and nowhas a cochlear…
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NOVEMBER EVENING
He sits calmly in the cornerof the restaurant redolent with curryand cardamom.He smiles, unseen,his third eyes staresdeeply felt on the backof my neck.Her eyes draw me inoffering a serenity.She smiles freelyand I recall the parkin the shadow of the mountainsthe soft touch of velvetand the empressalongside the fool.It is too soon donebut the soft furof…
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RULES
I learned from John Berrymanby way of W.S. Merwin that as a poetI should paper my walls with rejection letters.I thought this a good idea whenI lived in a small apartment, butall too soon the walls appearedto be growing ever smallerand I was papering over paper,like the latest in a too longline of tenants who…
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an old writer and his words 