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, August 20, 2019

There is a way in which time has stopped


August 20, 1998  (I was 53)

There is a way in which time has stopped
Fewer moments distinguish themselves
as attached to hour, day, month, year.
Fewer events materialize
with an objective reality so defined
as to be difficult to displace from mind.
A young mind needs more milestones
reminders of where it’s been
on the geography to where it’s going.
Eventually things appear enough alike
to be destinations
and we are satisfied to know
where we are is where we’re going.
Truth evolves and dissolves
sift of fact, color of emotion.
I’m not concerned that yesterday
be remembered tomorrow
as it is remembered today.
I am concerned about our perceptive abilities
to support our testimony
that yesterday ever existed at all.
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