“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
You Can Listen Here An age ago, in 1977, late and driving fast on a shortcut in a bad car in sleety rain to a graduate course, my used Ford Maverick, my first car, coughed, coughed again, and the dashboard lit up — somewhere in the engine steel was rubbing against steel. I pulled onto the shoulder, stopped, popped the hood and got out, and stared at smoke rising from the center of all that greased-up […]
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You Can Listen Here I did not hear the thump; later, I found it under one of the porch windows, unscathed and dead, more a figurine than a once living creature. I’ve kept the feeders and bird-baths away from the house to cut down on these accidents, but some still fly head-strong into reflections of trees and skies, and I find them later – always a small ghastly surprise to see such grace stilled […]
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You Can Listen Here I cannot wholly explain why the final image from The Searchers* so moves me – John Wayne framed by the doorway of a home suddenly rich with joy, but he turns away and almost stumbles off the porch, holding his right arm as if bruised, the Monument Valley wind driving hard against him. Maybe every distinct segment of our lives can be framed by this: we are either leaving home or […]
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You Can Listen Here Dixie, Rex and Jordan, young Great Pyrenees , roamed a pasture, wild as Cheyenne colts, and never felt a kind hand on their bodies. They were taken in. Dixie, the most trusting, was the first to be chosen for a home. It took two of us to corner Jordan so a lead could be slipped over her head. She and I walked the boundaries of the lower field where she made sure […]
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