Category: articles
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Reincarnation
—after Wallace Stevens I placed a tattered sonnet in a Mason jar on a low hill in Tennessee, adrift and lost, and waited for rains to wash my frail poem far eastward, tumbling to brook, to stream, river-tossed past roots and slim hulls to wave swells of the sea. By current shape and…
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Bleed Till the Last Drop
He watches her with sorrow. Watches his friend, his confidant, give all that she can, and then let the people she serves tear her open for more. He watches her bleed for her people – their people – as if it doesn’t hurt. As if she’s not giving everything that she is to them and…
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The Power of Definitions
History provides us with numerous tragedies that are as bewildering as they are horrifying. How could a nation, committed to freedom and the belief that “all men are created equal,” tolerate a system of labor that enslaved millions of black people for 2 1/2 centuries? How could a powerful civilized European nation condemn 6…
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The Evangelical Abolitionists and the Rhetoric of Conversion
Not many social movements in American history can challenge the abolitionist crusade in terms of entertainment, excitement, and violence. As Ernest Bormann notes, “few reforms have been supported by so many inspired, dedicated, involved, and admirable people and few by as many crackpots, radicals, neurotics, and fanatics.”[1] The antislavery movement was at its peak…
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The Decline of Civility
I. Name Calling Hosts A well-known radio talk show host suggests that a young woman who testified to Congress about insurance coverage for contraceptives is a “slut” and a “prostitute.” A TV news commentator refers to the President as a “retard.” A different TV commentator refers to a different President as “a rube”…
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Before Mud Season
Smoke from chimneys leak into houses, windows cracked eager to suck in anything fresh. Elated Mothers, doffing last year’s LL Bean spring collections, no longer scold frisky pent-up children for leaving doors wide-open. Soon, they’ll shriek about thick blackish gray mud trekked in all day and night, but not yet. Dirty iced snow hangs on…
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Call
What do you do when the burglar winding in your window at night bellows, Call, call the police? There were knives in the kitchen, sticks along the wall, a screw gun and the OED. Mother Earth sang a Capella when she cloned it ten. It could have been more. Then came the report: sleeper lurches…
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The Purple Pacifier
The purple pacifier vanished One week ago. I found it today While rocking the baby: deserted Like a dead man’s sombrero That was blown by a western wind Against a stubby leg Of the gray changing table, blended As gray and purple tend to do, Sticking its tongue out at me This whole time Like…
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Used car lot shepherd
Before smart devices most lads aspired to astronaut or president. Sister Mary Black an’ Decker prayed that I would grow into a priest. She was a bit strange. I loved her. With her right sleeve rolled and ruler poised, her bicep damselfly tattoo smiled. Neighborhood pals and I pooled our money buying old Mercury. Didn’t…
