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In Memoriam: Walking on Air
Epitaph By Merrit Malloy When I dieGive what’s left of me awayTo childrenAnd old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry,Cry for your brotherWalking the street beside you.And when you need me,Put your armsAround anyoneAnd give themWhat you need to give to me. I want to leave you something,Something betterThan wordsOr sounds. Look for meIn the…
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following the sun – an American dream for me
But now that I have spent more than half my life in the desert southwest, there are still unguarded moments of dislocation that bring a crushing loneliness and a visceral longing for “home,” for brightly painted front doors and blue space; for a slow pace in a rainy place where strangers say hello to each other; where church bells peal and roosters crow; where there…
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For My Grandfather – Dulce et Decorum Est.
My grandfather died on June 22, 1977, a decade before the Enniskillen bombing. Had he been alive on that day, he would have been wearing his pressed suit, with medals and a poppy attached to the lapels, not unlike those pensioners gathered respectfully at the Cenotaph where at 10:43am where, with chilling choreography, an IRA bomb exploded, killing eleven and…
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There’s a better home awaitin’
Ben, my favorite uncle, died this morning, and the world is instantly dimmer. I have been thinking about him a lot recently, unable to watch the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music without being mentally transported to Ben’s kitchen in Magherafelt, where he would deliver to anyone who would listen, a lengthy treatise on the contributions of Flatt and Scruggs …
