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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Saturday, June 15, 2019

When I was told so long ago


June 15, 2011  (I was 66)

When I was told so long ago
Appreciate your youth it will not last.
I believed and did as I was told,
lay on my back to look at the blue
and the clouds and appreciate.
Loved what I had and so valued it
I put some of it on deposit in the bank
Now so long from then I still withdraw
beneath contorted cloud, that boy to thank.

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