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, August 8, 2020

longing

from this week in August, 1987 (I was 42)

 

longing

for the quiet magnitude

of the original garden

before the first taste

of addictive want

that desire to possess

every fancy

 

for the quiet magnitude

of the original garden

with its solemn expression

of subtle magnificence

to fulfill every moment

aware

 

for the quiet magnitude

of the original garden

where no hand had turned

what the mind had twisted

with hissing whisper

to muscle

 

longing for the quiet

magnitude

of the original garden

but weeding something else

the while hoeing and pruning

to a noisy minority

watering evaporation

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