I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Monday, August 29, 2016

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (4)


August 29

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (4)*
I walked the ridge trail olive groves
above the southern access to the hills
climbed deer and critter paths
through the oaks to summit roads

my point of view now more western,
more elevated; turkey vultures overhead
Afternoon sun colored but did not warm
the wind blowing my vision eastward

Pieces lay in colored cubes of her
abstractions on a newly ordered horizon
separate recognizable her parts
to be reconsidered there from here

This old beauty anew again
the possibility of always fresh
she provides in a smile I assume
is there but still have not seen

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)
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