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.


Comments Welcome!

Thursday, June 24, 2021

Northern Minnesota is flooded

 

June 24, 2012 (I was 67) 

 

Northern Minnesota is flooded

No snow this winter but lotsa rain

all spring too and last week

if you are lakeside you wanna have a floating dock 

Tree tops stick out of the water

points of land submerged

The bare rocks of ore dumps

are tree covered as if they were hills

You have to look between

white birch trunks and poplars

and the once dominant scattered pines

to see the reflected tints of ore

Purple crimson ruby and rust

orange and gold topped by the green

make scenic a land I only knew as scarred

Gouged pits now pass as lakes and reservoirs

recreation sites to launch your boat and drift

over watery graves of Indian and immigrant

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