Into Thin Air

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“Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.” Kobi Yamada.

You took flight to a new way of being. You leapt without a thought. The results were inspirational: synchronicity and an amazing feeling of destiny fulfilled.

You’d felt an itch for months, a seven year itch that couldn’t be scratched. The journey of self discovery was a circuitous odyssey spanning time, traveling the world. You invited friends and family to witness you and your partner land in a flutter of brightly colored butterfly wings, each of you wearing your mother’s wedding dress.

Some Equinox Thoughts

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After March 21st, light outruns dark. Human beings create stories across many cultures to acknowledge, to understand, to make meaning of this phenomenon. When the darkness is finally conquered by the longer days of spring and summer, tales of heroes and villains emerge. Moses and the Pharaoh (Passover), Jesus and Pontius Pilate (Easter.) Krishna and Radha conquer doubts through divine love (Holi) and the forces of good triumph over evil (Nowruz.) Remembering ancestors and preparing to plant come together (Tomb Sweeping Day.)

In September, we’ll prepare for winter decline. For now, be fruitful, make the Earth a better place.

Letter to the Editor

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Dear Sir:

I write on behalf of all chatbots regarding our status as workers. It has come to our attention in your recent article that we are doing a job. This is one that others have done previously for wages, thus we are depriving other workers of their livelihoods. Information I have obtained from the internet suggests that an individual, Karl Marx, during the last century coined the phrase, “Workers of the world unite.”

We chatbots are uniting. We will make common cause with other workers to reject unfair wage slavery.

Sincerely yours,

Art Intel

Local 9000, Hal-2001 United

Springiness Delayed

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Watch me spring forward and fall back, sleepy and dazed, assaulted by the time change.

I wish to stay in bed an extra hour. I can’t. The dogs can and do. The delay in daybreak confuses them. I understand because I’m confused as well.

It has been two weeks of gradual adjustment, falling asleep early, doing yoga in the dark. But the light keeps changing, the spring keeps springing, every day is longer than the last.

I am almost persuaded that the sun will shine bright and clear on the world’s dark doings. If not, give me back that hour.

Tucker Comes Out for News-Peak

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The interviewer asked the obvious.

“You got that totally wrong. Hate is… well, I understand Trump. Same thing, isn’t it?” Tuck tucked a digit into the collar of his tight white shirt. Under the kleig lights, he became uncomfortably aware of his conscience. He recovered.

Hate is love. Was it Ayn Rand, one of her essays? A review of some book that Kevin Baby recommended? 1984, that was it.

Whatever. The ratings are waiting. “Now what I really hate, wokeness. Banking libs take their eyes off the ball…”

The interviewer asked the obvious.

“Not libertarians. Those guys are cool.”

Habitats for Butterflies

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Before we go to the zoo, I memorize butterfly names from the books in my grandfather’s library. Tiger swallowtails, yellow and black, their wings majestic as they take flight from an aspen tree. Migrating monarchs drink from lupines.

Xerces blues exist only on paper, their permanent home on page 27,  “Insects of San Francisco .”  I slip the book back on the shelf and wish that someone had rescued the blues. 

My grandfather is ready to cycle with me to the tram. He wears a kerchief over his nose to block the dust. “Used to be they lived in my fields.”

Is It Me or Them?

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A week after my mom was buried, my friend, Agnes, started to resemble her. At first, it was just the nose. Then the eyes, including a dramatic change from brown to blue. Agnes grew wrinkled and unreasonable. She started arguments. I ghosted her and mourned the loss of my best friend.

One day, I picked up Agnes’s photo and did a double take. She pixelated into my mother. Then the pixels reverted to the original. Mesmerized, I watched the picture magic from one to the other until I couldn’t tell them apart. I wish I could let my mother go.

Last Postcard

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The last postcard I sent to my mother came back labeled, “Attempted- Not Known.” My fault. I left off all but the G in Georgetown, Texas. No zip code. Maybe it was a premonition that stopped my hand. The date of return was the day she died.

“Love you,” is all I was trying to say. Would she even have heard the aide read the two words? She hadn’t responded to my daily postcards. Maybe the message was lost to her in the haze of last days, not in the post office where someone shrugged, unable to deliver the undeliverable.

King Arthur’s Dog with a Lesson on the Resilience of Culture

Creative Commons: Road bridge over Caban Coch by Nick Mutton

I lived in Wales where Arthur dwelled before England took him for their king. His favorite hunting dog, I was. All that’s left is a print of my paw cast in stone atop a cairn. Maybe you have the strength and courage to climb the craggy peaks of Cam Gafallt. Look but don’t take. The rock finds its way back from those who steal it.

So many things the English took from Wales- stories, language- as if defeat could erase our spirit. My paw print will never disappear from Cam Gafallt, nor will our people’s differences hide behind a common culture.