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.


Comments Welcome!

Thursday, January 10, 2019

The bottom of the hill resided in clear air


from this week in January, 1998  (I was 53)

The bottom of the hill resided in clear air
The ascending road climbed into cloud
The air wetter than fog and warmer
got under my collar as I walked
The sound of two rocks clapped together
hung loud and long
Someone else was on the way down
She passed by a hundred yards later
hurrying her pace to a clumsy trot
soon as I broke into her view
revealing her wordless fear
as if she had not also split my solitude
I knew the sound had been rocks
she plucked from a roadside land fall
Cracked together like experimental gunshots
I continued into my own invisibility
Rising deeper into thick illumination
the road undulated onto the invisible summit
The nearest oaks to where I stood were trees
The shapes beyond were something other
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