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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Friday, November 2, 2018

The learning of the new


from this week in November 2008  (I was 63)

The learning of the new
comes not from the ground
not the baked clay of California
nor the black loam of Minnesota
nor the pyritic glass of Hawaii
The few foreign grounds I’ve walked upon
seem not much different
in towns and cities built over
with shops and churches
And in the country field and forest
yield as ever the fragrant must
of knowledge that has always been
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