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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Saturday, December 10, 2016

The night Jesus played the music


December 10, 1999  (I was 55)

The night Jesus played the music
the fire continued burning
the low flames dancing over the embers
untended as if replenished
by harmonic sound wafting over them
The subtle rhythmic crackle kept the time
and the melody danced from sparks to desert stars
The strummed notes fell easily from his fingers
as his words that day had left his lips
patterned in such obvious nature
to lead us to believe we had always known them
like lyrics to a song we thought forgotten
first sung to us while we rested in our mother’s arms
and looked up through those stars
into the quiet comfort of the dark
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