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, December 19, 2020

unsound expectation

 

from this week in 2005   (I was 61)

 

         unsound expectation

I had expected the sounds from all below

to settle into the comfortable hum

within the sonic universality of aum

I’ve been accustomed to this perception

in the heightened awareness stimulated

by focused intent on the physical climb

But yesterday there was an unfamiliar whine

above the drone and apart from it

It was less plaintive than the squeals

of freeway semis shriller than train wheels

fighting against the curving rails

a sound distinct from historic wails

of horror beyond humanity

that humanity so often creates

I know this subtlety relates

as all sounds from the common source

I just did not expect it in this state

I underestimated us of course

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