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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Friday, August 20, 2021

There is a way in which time has stopped

 

August 20, 1998  (I was 53)

 


Fewer moments distinguish themselves

as attached to hour, day, month, year.

Fewer events materialize

with an objective reality so defined

as to be difficult to displace from mind.

A young mind needs more milestones

reminders of where it’s been

on the geography to where it’s going.

Eventually things appear enough alike

to be destinations

and we are satisfied to know

where we are is where we’re going.

Truth evolves and dissolves

sift of fact, color of emotion.

I’m not concerned that yesterday

be remembered tomorrow

as it is remembered today.

I am concerned about our perceptive abilities

to support our testimony

that yesterday ever existed at all.

 

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