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, March 15, 2021

Yosemite Another solitary walk

 

March 15, 2014  (I was 69)

 

Yosemite

Another solitary walk from Happy Isles

above the back road on the horse trail through the trees

following the Merced whose flow is the predominant sound

and the only traffic is the half-hourly valley shuttle bus

The occasional meeting with bobcat or coyote

introduces a mutual trepidation and rapid assessment

of escape routes acknowledging possible danger

even from minor beast or minor man

I imagine ventures of Miwok children playing

among these boulders two hundred years ago

where now a family of four deer cross my path

with the presumption of protection a National Park provides

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