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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Monday, August 17, 2020

Out of the house before anyone knew

 

August 17, 2015  (I was 70)

 

Out of the house before anyone knew

to the post office an excuse as good as any

then the village hall library to read a mag

around the school closed for the summer

across the park behind the band shell

past the Catholic church under the water tower

I saw the ghost at the train trestle underpass

looking for me as he waited there

to walk alongside under the tracks

through a neighborhood where neither of us lived

eager and content in the presence of mutual silence

The few who greeted him didn’t see me

The few I knew did not see him

We walked ‘til twilight in solitary accord

shared a language of few words

and sounds that drowned in darkness

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