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 31, 2019

The truth is so basic so fundamental


from this week in 2008  (I was 64) 

The truth is so basic so fundamental
only faith can ignore it
No man owns land
no race defines place
No land was a divine gift
Alive we occupy
but we arrive and leave landless
False needs are the seeds

All the other justifications
the wars the treaties the boundaries
the claims the writs the water rights
the promises the deeds
(indeed the deeds)
are to separate the greeds
between that that we have
and that that we want
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