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!

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Family Music

 

July 17, 2009  (I was 64)

 

         Family Music

Once there was music

a pair of clarinets

in thin harmony and fragile strength

like hope and sunrise

bird call and answer

 

Once were molten golden notes

poured from bell of saxophone

pure liquid substance

permeated every room

like warmth and light

hits everyone around a fire

 

Once a complexity of melody

a galaxy of constellations

sparkled from a flute

to fill the density of heaven

like a continuity of wisdoms

that hold our myths together

 

Once there was music

made by those who could

Now only the percussive hammering

of one who could never hold a beat

An occasional lost echo

haunts a different reality

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