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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Sunday, June 2, 2019

Iron Range reunion


June 2, 2006  (I was 61)

Iron Range reunion
I will not be back
for the village centennial
I entertained the idea
served it a beer and some chips
dismissed it with a nod and a wave
It’s a very small town
every corner a memory
every loss a pain known by all
I cannot live there
the weight is too heavy
for a burden so small
Those of us gone
know why we left
there was so little to offer so few
The bleak beauty of the place was mined out
the voice of mean blame
is diminished by distance
duty to change it left to those who stayed
I won’t go back now to see who did and didn’t
regarding here or there
but sometime not locally momentous
I’d walk the streets again
on an August afternoon
or a January midnight
hold hands with the past
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