“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
For audio version click here Lift your eyes up to the trees not long after first light; warblers are falling out of the sky. Yesterday morning dozens zipped through and around the tall butternut and sassafras trees in our yard hunting insects. The southern migration has been underway for weeks, and if the weather is right and their energy needs a boost, they will drop en-masse to feed and rest. In Maine, we saw another ‘drop’ […]
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For audio version click here A glowing morning fog hides the ocean. Cormorants stand upright on rocks in the little inlet, their wings outstretched. A line of ducks shelter on the calm water. The pines on Fox Island fade in and out of sight. We hear the low chugging motors of the lobster boats first and then watch their shadowy presence skitter from buoy to buoy, cages pulled up and then splashing back. Island Coast: […]
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For audio version click here Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson lay conscious and dying deep below decks of the 104 gun Victory , naked under a sheet, shot through the spine and a lung, his chest massaged by his servant, Mr. Burke, in an effort to relieve him of some pain. Around him in the half-light wounded sailors and marines moaned and screamed. The Victory’s surgeon worked steadily in a scene that Nelson’s chaplain later described “…as like a […]
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For audio version click here Crossing the river into town this wet August provides glimpses of the brown river and of banks luxuriant with trees. I’ll take the flood over drought anytime. When I see weather reports coming out of the burning west or the smoldering mid-west, some primeval part of me comes to the fore, maybe the same feeling that caused our ancestors to awaken abruptly and look out beyond the fire into a […]
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