Category: Uncategorized
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Nail and Sock
How does a nail rise from the floor over the course of many days until it becomes a peril, the head no longer flush with wood able to tear holes in your socks when you shuffle along the hall between bedrooms in stocking feet? Perhaps the plank recalls itself a whole tree, before it was…
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Bagging Groceries
Careful to put items which are well–protected and heavy, like a quart of milk, in first, saving the top for eggs or a box of crackers where they won’t get crushed under tubs of dip – foodstuff sorted by weight and how vulnerable it is as each purchase slides off the belt, is scanned at…
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Respect
(on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s election) When I was in fifth grade, I made my friends laugh by drawing funny pictures of George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle, two people l knew little about except what I overheard from my parents, who were decidedly unimpressed with them as leaders of our country -…
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C.P.E. Bach
“J.S. Bach’s most successful son”, the classical radio host introduced him with confidence, and I wondered: by what standard does he merit this distinction above three musician brothers whose extant works also bring joy? They all survived to be adults, more than can be said for many – including some of their siblings. And what…
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Everyday Saraband
Latkes for Hanukkah Dollops of grated potato ladled into a hot skillet slick with a sheen of cooking oil. No one can find the menorah, but it doesn’t seem to matter – my wife’s father lights a candle and recites a Hebrew prayer. Aunt Vi’s Cocoons A votive honoring Aunt Vi flickers on the kitchen…
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Olympic Valley
The mountain seems firm in its position. By and large, within my life span, it is – assuming no tectonic upheaval or sudden volcanic eruption. I do not see myself so resolute as an ancient sierra, for instance; I am too easily influenced by features in the terrain around me. More akin to rivers, I…
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Labyrinth
For a data collection exercise at work, never mind what it was about, they asked me to walk slowly on a grid of many squares, each a meter per side, lingering in them as I strolled along. After a few minutes, my thoughts began to wander; it occurred to me this could be like the…
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Diwali
Diwali in Wildfire Season High-voltage power lines above tree tops: what we see from our apartment windows. The neighbors are celebrating Diwali, a triumph of light over darkness. The winds shift and we can smell wildfire in the county a hundred miles north of us. These gusts can snap a cable apart and spread the…
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Jim Harrison
When I Heard Jim Harrison Died I was on my way to Joseph D. Grant county park, listening to Prairie Home Companion. They played a Gillian Welch song, and afterward, in a mellow voice which sought to comfort, Garrison Keillor told us Jim had died – had swum into a celestial river where diaphanous angels…
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Little Tailor
The Little Tailor of Summer Nights When the day’s humidity has broken and the risen moon makes dew drops glisten like stars across the expanse of your lawn a moth approaches the deck lamp outside your bedroom window, its wings aflutter casting shadows against the wall that form the very pattern from which dreams are…
From the Firefly Galaxy 