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Seek not for whom the bell tolls
Do you ever put something away for safe-keeping, only to find it has changed in the interval since you last looked? Retirement can be like that: hanging a once comfortable identity in a closet somewhere, and discovering it no longer fits when you try it on for old times’ sake. Not only that, but the…
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On seeing a friend after his stroke
At first,He was the man I knew,And thenHe wasn’t-Some of him didn’tWork;He didn’t even lookThe same.I don’t mindThat –We all wear our yearsLike old clothes:The rips and stainsAre diariesOf our lives.But usually,Something shinesInside the smiles,The labels stillAre legible,And,Even smudged,There is a linkThat we can read,A pinThat fastens usTogether.And yet hisHas come undone,Unpinned.I cannot find himIn…
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Etched upon the Horizon
Now that I am retired, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of time I have to myself. Unlike the time brimming over with things, and filled to the top with purpose to which I had grown accustomed, what greets me each morning in my autumnal years is as empty as a refrigerator on shopping…
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To be, or not…
Perhaps it’s my increasingly autumnal years, but lately I’ve begun to wonder about what extinction really means. Not so much my own, you understand -although that will happen soon enough- but ours. All of us… Extinction has certainly happened before of course. I mean, the Neanderthals went extinct, the Dodos went extinct, the wooly mammoths…
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The Hungry Field
I saw it Twitching In the tall grass Behind the house. Camouflaged And hidden Until it moved, It was a weed Amongst weeds, Just another stalk Trembling In a wind That wasn’t. And then Another shadow Surfaced, Although It seemed to point The other way At first, Until it slipped Like an errant fin Beneath…
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Is this a smile which I see before me?
There are few things that make me feel as welcome as a smile; in whatever country I’ve travelled, and into whichever city I’ve ventured, it has always seemed a welcome guide to my reception. Of course I realize a smile has as many faces as a clown; one has to be careful about its meaning,…
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To be, or not to be, is that the question…?
‘To be, or not to be…’ The timeless soliloquy by Shakespeare’s Hamlet still provokes a shiver. I don’t hear it as much now that I’m retired from my Obstetrical practice and contraception (or pregnancy termination) is so readily available; it occasionally surfaces from time to time in my social interactions, however. The problem is often…
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The last refuge of the unimaginative
I’m not sure where I fit on the psychological spectrum -somewhere in the middle, probably- but I think I would prefer to be on the edge somewhere… Not too close to a cliff, or anything, but far enough away that I can actually see the sky, and feel the wind. Liminality is a state of…