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What Shapes Us

All that passes descends,and ascends again unseeninto the light: the rivercoming down from skyto hills, from hills to sea,and carving as it moves,to rise invisible,gathered to light, to returnagain. “The river’s injuryis its shape.” I’ve learned no more.We are what we are givenand what is taken away;blessed be the nameof the giver and taker.For everything…

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Where Love and Need Are One

My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.Only where love and need are one,And the work is play for mortal stakes,Is the deed ever really doneFor heaven and the future’s sakes.— Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time When people ask whether I’m traveling for…

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See the Changes

She has seen me changingIt ain’t easy rearrangingAnd it gets harder as you get olderFarther away as you get closer— Crosby, Stills & Nash, See the Changes I have a place along the shore that I’ve visited countless times. The hardscape hardly appears different from visit-to-visit, it’s the bay and the sky, the trees and…

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Others

“In order to be the person I want to be, I must strive, hourly, against the drag of the others.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Four* Some of them mean well, wanting nothing but the best for us. Some don’t care a lick about what we want, only that a glow might reflect on them….

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Keep It Simple

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” —Jack Kerouac Simple seems so complicated some days. Mondays often openly mock the very idea of simplicity. Want to do big things in this lifetime? Meet your wrestling partner, complexity. Complexity usually doesn’t play by the rules. Of course, Kerouac danced with…