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A CALL
The thing about it is it is so damn quiet I can hear myself think but I can’t think anymore. And I’ll tell you this box is so cold it just leaks air and water has seeped in. Somehow I expected more it isn’t at all what was promised and the stone is not set…
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TIME ERODES
The house is suddenly empty standing alone on a stark barren lot. The old drapes are drawn tight and little light enters, but there is no one there to see it. Every once in a while there is a rattle, a creaking, and you expect someone to appear in one of the now dark windows,…
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THE VILLAGES
You are driving through the Florida that once was, that is off the coast, and out of Orlando, the Florida of jalousie windows, run down once gas stations and the more than occasional double wide. Suddenly, you are in a Disney version of a semi-tropical New England, gated villages where cars have been supplanted by…
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GIVE US THIS DAY
The old bus shelter has spray painted walls and a broken metal bench. Each morning he shuffles up the hill, a battered leatherette briefcase clutched tightly in his right hand, a copy of the Seattle Times “Nixon in China” in the other. He sits calmly on the bench case between his knees and waits patiently…
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THE REAL WAY 碧巌録 二
Heed Joshu’s words the real way is not difficult look within the mind come across words, thoughts and cast them over the edge into the abyss. Continue searching until no words or thoughts remain and you are left with mu. Then carry mu to the precipice and cast it, too, into the abyss make your…
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SMALL REFLECTION
It is that moment when the moon is a glaring crescent, slowly engulfed by the impending night — when the few clouds give out their fading glow In the jaundiced light of the sodium arc street lamp.- It nestles the curb — at first a small bird — when touched, a twisted piece of root…
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A SIMPLE SONG
Much as every person is a Buddha every guitar can play a simple song. Some will lay it badly, some will break a string, some will play with an unspoken regret, but all have the capacity, recognized or not, to create a moment of memory. On this night there are two, both skilled, honed of…
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WHAT DID YOU DO
When they asked him what did you do during the war he said “I just stood guard.” When they asked him where he said “A station, just a station, like most others, I just stood guard.” When they asked him did you see the trains carrying the bodies crammed into cattle cars he said “I…
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ARLINGTON NATIONAL
As the plane slowly descends the cemetery appears through a break in the clouds. The headstones are arrayed in neatly ordered geometries, unknown to those who lie beneath, and those who water the always verdant lawns. Mausoleums cluster in a small village, from which no one ever moves, and rest comes easily to those who…
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WHERE?
Set aside for a moment the sheer insanity of it all. Pretend that this is not your concern, it is merely something that you inherited, never wanted, would gladly part with on the simplest of requests you doubt will ever be forthcoming. Is this why you treasure it and cling to it so tightly or…
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an old writer and his words 