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TEMPUS
The clock chimed the hour.How long had he been here,inside the works of the great timepiecemarking imagined units that had meaningonly for him, for all, for no one?He knew his time was limited, alltime would someday be depletedand then what — that was the questionno one dared ask, everyoneanswered. Time was a mazethere was no…
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RISING TIME
Night rises slowlyfrom tangled rootsdragging ocher and rustfrom reluctant trees,promising only winter.We cannot see this,we sense only time eroding,slipping off untilthe trees are naked.They want onlyto hide themselvesin a shimmering gownof snow, recallingtheir verdancy, imagininganother season, a seasonof hope, a seasonof consecration, of light,of resurrection.We stand emotionallystripped on the banksof the stream into whichwe cannot…
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WIDOWER
In the cold nightof another winterhe stares outacross the barren fieldswhich have long forgottenthe taste of the sun.He watches carefullyfor a signbut the naked branchdenies the breeze.He remembershow it once wasin the heatof the dying firethe sweetness of her lipslingering on his tongue.She is gone, has beenso long, her faceis hiddenby the gauzy veilof time.He…
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TOO SOON
The leaves will soon begintheir descent from the small tree,already brown, their beautydeparting before they do so. They are bilobular, an odd word,but one that belongs in a poem,even this one it seems, and it istheir shape that you first notice. The tree will all to soon be naked,branches sticking into the airas if searching…
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BALANCE
The young man says, “I cannot comprehend how karma can be balanced.” The woman laughs, says, “you remember but I was once a stripper, that I took off my clothes, and being naked in the presence of men was nothing, since to them I wasn’t a person, just an object of momentary desire, but that…
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GARDEN
Why do the televangelists beg and cajole me, constantly ask me for my money? Surely they must know that in Eden which they promise, we are all naked and have no pockets.
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SOZAN’S FOUR DON’TS 鐵笛倒吹 九十二
You may seek to follow the path of the dove, for a fool knows many roads. You may wrap yourself in fine linen, an infant wears only his skin and knows this moment is already gone. Think long before you speak of how to walk along the path, of where it leads. The baby says…
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HUANGBO’S SINGLE STAFF
All singularities are naked and it is only when we clothe them that they crumble away. You step into this river only once but it is this water which will wet your feet when you step in the next and the next. A reflection on Case 91 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
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TIME PASSING
We spend countless time trying to find silence, and when we find it it drives us to distraction. We can lose ourselves in noise as we never can in silence, and being emotionally naked alone is the scariest place this side of death, and we know that death promises only silence eternal.
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an old writer and his words 