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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Wednesday, August 4, 2021

August 4, 2000 (I was 55)

 

August 4, 2000  (I was 55)

 

The scent of floral vegetation

that had hung in warm morning air

is dissipated by the ocean breeze

that also chases remnant cloud tissue

up the slope toward Mauna Loa

 

The laps of relaxing repetition lull

the senses into timelessness

Billfish Tournament boats pace the sea alleys

First the pair of magpie then the doves

make their rounds on the lawn

 

Cheryl does her languid morning crawl

flick plash forth and back across the pool

Hands of articulate palms practice

delicate gesture and reflective hula

both on the air and over the water

 

The charter dive boat bobs off the point

Swimmers join the flight circles of mantas

to feel the proximate terror of their mass

and the jolt of awareness

to perceive the self within the greater realm

 

The quiet pulse of surf plays the lava shore

while summer leaves to become summer

So goes the tropical pattern in days

of here and there over and under

until from the mountain the thunder     

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