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, December 11, 2018

A bar of iron in my hands


December 11, 2010  (I was 66) 

A bar of iron in my hands
remains a bar of iron
as many times I heft its weight
and examine its dimensions
I do not melt it to pour a mold
I do not shave shards on a lathe
I do not weld it to adjoin or construct
I put it in a damp basement to rust
as patiently as the cosmos
watch it turn back to ore
with conscious awareness that it is happening
That seems not worth much now
Who can measure and weigh awareness
It is still a bar of iron
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