Category: Blog Entry
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What shall it profit?
A disturbing question that deserves serious consideration. I ask myself: Is the present condition truly intolerable? What if? What if? If only? Where’s the profit? What’s the gain? Will I lose what I have if I gain what I want? A precarious balance on a knife’s edge. Two verities. One coin, two sides. One without the other? Balance…
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Remember When
One of the most enchanting melodies I have ever heard (John Barlow Jarvis – The Flame) Play This While You Read – Click on the arrow below to start playing. The Flame Remember when we loved?Remember when we danced each to music that the other played?It was so sweet…
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Forgive Them
Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do. A tough hurdle to jump. But an even tougher hurdle would have been, “Forgive them for they know precisely what they do.” Is it easier to forgive a sin born of ignorance than it is to forgive one done in perfect awareness? Can there be innocence in ignorance? Even a need for…
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The Day He Came Home
( excerpt from The Memory Project ) Lieutenant Don Black arrived in Normandy a short time after the events of June 6. He may have been involved in the breakout from Caen for he received a telegram somewhere “on active service in the field” informing him of the accidental…
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Three Score Ten and Three
A reasonable score and one that many have fallen short of.I must consider myself lucky, given the actuarial table odds on my age, sex and questionable history. But one can hope. Lying in a hospital bed, an oxygen feed up my nose, a shunt in my left arm for possible emergency meds and my chest bristling…
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Fireflies – Warning Poetry Alert
The night lies still as death,Mists curling round cattails and willows.A tattered moon plays hide-and-seek With galleon clouds, sails unfurled against a spray of stars.Nightjars and swallows on the huntFlash from tree to branch, unerring,Taking fearsome toll of other flight-bound creatures.And naught but gloaming lights this narrow trackArched above with leaves of darkened shadeSave the haunting…
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Sticks & Stones
Sticks & Stones Skin & Bones I want to investigate the relationship between Sticks & Stones and Skin & Bones. It’s paradoxical. Hard objects can take a terrible toll on soft matter. We all know the childhood retort, a weak and devil-may-care reply that we knew to be a lie. Yet for all that, we are evolved…
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Things To Come
A feather lands gently atop an earthen weir, its vanes and barbs dislodge a score of grains that trickle down the sloping face. Those simple few beget a slew of others, jostling in their haste to carve an ever-widening fan that draws a host of others, indifferent to what they may foretell. A drop follows in…
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A House is not a Home
( photo credit Diane M.) A House is a collection of things. Many things are old and precious, reminders of times and events long passed. These things are hard to part with but live on in memory and never fade. A great many things are those that have simply accumulated over the years and…
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Lesson #101 – Fallen
Late spring / early summer, the grass grows unruly and the first brilliant manes of dandelion heads are crouching through the green like great cats approaching prey. There is a strong sense of promise in the air, poised for the inexorable rush to renewal, little miracles all around converging on the great blossoming to come. I breathe…
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Lesson #103 – Popcorn at the Circus
So the story goes, as Hitch the Magnificent tells it ( I’m paraphrasing here) , , , At a busy international airport, Hitch was approached by a saffron-robed individual whose shaven head, sandaled feet and serene manner bespoke a follower of the Buddha. While quietly chanting his mantra, he paused in his devotions to ask…
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Lesson #102 – Angel of Mercy
Angel of Mercy For all the pain I have experienced, all the discomfort that I’ve born, the boredom, the frustration this old body has inflicted, the indignities I have suffered, I have endured. It has been a trial and a test. God has seen fit to make of me a latter-day Job, beset by all the mischief that…
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Lesson #106 – Nouns Before Verbs
Noun. Verb. Adverb. Adjective. Pronoun. Conjunction. That’s just a few of the nuts and bolts. Declarative. Interrogative. Simile. Metaphor. Those are just a few chapters in the instruction manual. So many ways to put them all together and I’ve only scratched the surface. The object is to put my thought into your head without screwing it up, the thought that is. I…
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Lesson #107 – I’m no Mathew.
How can I tell you? – eyes to see and ears to hear. Expanding on Lesson #106 Mathew hit the nail on the head. I have a vision and a mission, not in any biblical sense; something a little more down to earth. It occurred to me (re-occurred actually) while lying on a hospital bed, more…
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Censored
When I say things that offend the sensibilities of others, it is not my intention to offend,,,,, usually. The fact that it may offend is scarcely my responsibility,,,,, usually. Rather, it lies with the one (or many) taking offence. My offhand comments are simply responses to what has already been said by others, a first reaction, a…
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Good Day Sunshine
There are days when I climb out of bed, pick up my tablet, open my blog and browse through a few of the lighter selected pieces. I actually read them. I do. Then I’m ready to face the day with a smile and a feeling of confidence and good vibes having digested a meal of that inspirational…
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Eyes to See – Ears to Hear
(Warning – Poetry Alert) Sights I’ve never seen, sounds I’ve never heard Dance at the borders of my sense A fragrance on the air And chiming silver bells Angels dancing before my eyes. They beckon, silkies rising from the sea Whispering temptress-words In voices so soft, alluring. See with other eyes In frequencies Dazzling to…
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Lesson #20 – The Green Steamer Trunk In The Basement
Like many veterans, my father was reluctant to publicly share his experiences of those days. He kept his wartime memories in a battered green steamer trunk in the basement. It smelled of mothballs and long-ago events that perhaps didn’t bear examining too closely. It wasn’t locked or anything but we (my sister and I) were never encouraged to…
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Lesson #110 – Transcendent
Transcendent There is music that is transcendent. You know, music that transcends lyrics, instrument or voice or even the medium that delivers it. It transcends all attempts to rein it in, to classify it. It goes beyond the intent of the composer. It exists on a higher plane where the whole is greater than the sum of its…
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I’m Not Dead Yet !!!!!
If so, then why do I feel like something odious stuck to the bottom of my shoe? No strength, no drive, no ambition, no desire, other than to sit on my lotus leaf and contemplate? The current has swept by me, leaving just a muddy swirl to mark its passing. I seem to be awaiting…
Notes In The Margin 