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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Sunday, March 21, 2021

Good Friday Night

 

March 21, 2008  (I was 63)

 

         Good Friday Night

Late in the vigil the votive candles flicker

wicks float in liquid tallow

contained in cups of crimson glass

pulsing the sanguine light

like a hundred flaming sacred hearts

emanating at once the scent of the tomb

and the waxy cool of the white lily at sunrise

The empty tabernacle waits to consume

each dry wafer of flesh

offered by the absent congregation

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