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CHRISTMAS
It isn’t my first Christmasalthough almost so, thatpart of me hidden for halfa century, its twisted discoveryfilling a hole that I neverknew existed, yet always knew. This is the strangest Christmas,a time of gathering, nowin isolation, only pixelsand prayers on a too flat screen,and it is hard, in timesof want and suffering, to recallwhy we…
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AN AVIAN MESSAGE
The birds departed one morning which we believe may be how they express displeasure, although the destruction of the nests and the death of the children by predators may have had something to do with the departure. We wait patiently for their return, the wetland still dry, but we hope with the wet season that…
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CANINE
The dog refuses to walkaround the house and checkthe driveway, and sothe shells will rain on the villageas they do each time she senses fear. She has a sight beyond thatI can fathom, curled underthe heat vent, as thoughthe cries of children carryin her dreams, her taildances against the grate. On most nights when she…
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MARCH ON
We marched regularly, often carring placards,this week against an insane warin a place we had no busines being,next week for the racial justicepromised for a century but never delivered,and then for the ecology, trying to savethe world that our parents promisedfor us as little children and failedto provide, choking through the smogand the teargas, scraping…
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ON KNOWLEDGE
There are things children knowthat parents will never understand. Odder still, things a person knowsas a child are forgotten in adulthood. A child measures the success of a dayby the duration of the parentdemanded bath at its end. A child know that boundaries, especiallythose parentally set, are flexibleand you don’t know wherethe limit is until…
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WHY NOT
Today in odd places,at the most unexpected moments,a child will smile without reason,a young girl will laugh,the young boy will strokethe neck of a wandering cat,and in that placeat that momentthere will be a simple peace.Only the children will notice this,though it gives lie to thosewho deem peace impossible.A child knows that it isonly preconceptionsand…
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A DEAFENING SILENCE
Sitting in stillness, the silenceis at first shocking, deafeningin a way unimagined but there. Within the lack of sound liesa thousand sounds you hadnever heard in the din of life. You hear the young monk at Senso-jiapproach the great bell and pullback on the log shu-moku, straining. You hear the laugh of school agedchildren hand…
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WE WERE SPECIAL
We were a special generation,that’s what they told us, and althoughwe had no real idea who they were,we drank the Kool-Aid and believed them. We got liberal educations, weresmarter than our parents,and went off to the wars that theystarted for us, did enough drugsto numb the pain of our existence,and became first class working drones.…
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A SIMPLE CHOICE
It is a simple choice, she said,bicycles or a cat. I wanted to tell her thatthere are no simple choicesin the middle of a pandemic,and those that seem that way,to mask or not, to shop or notcan be life or death choices. I thought about the optionsfor a few moments, rememberedthe cats I still mourn…
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BATTLESHIP
As a child I played Battleshipon a square grid, the ships markedby hand, one for each of the players,we were efficient by necessity. My sons played Battleship, thoughunder a different name in deferenceto my hatred of things martial,on an electrically wired board. My grandchildren haven’t yetdiscovered the game, now playedon their iPads and iPhones, but…
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an old writer and his words 