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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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Turn the corner or come round the bend


June 13, 1994  (I was 49)

Turn the corner or come round the bend
to feel wind in the face blowing a pace
not felt from behind.  Disconcerting to find
our movements of skill and grace
were artificially aided by wind at our back, 
Like the buoyancy of water
a levitating wind we were carried upon
and ran upon by choosing the path of the current,
the path of gravity unimpeded
until a friendly eddy brings us about
against the surprising force of the flow.
Facing the wind, fronting the wind
breath is filled with what is in the air,
lungs full with the forced inspiration
as when faced with an uphill climb.
But there is no hill, only the passage of time
a change in direction and the resistance of wind.
Wind builds strength in the body 
but each new turning toward resistant direction
requires an energy of unexpected intensity,
causes a pained exclamation from the thighs,
acknowledges in wry recognition less than surprise
the spiraling passage pulsing in sinew.
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