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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Sunday, October 17, 2021

I walk the invisible dog in the park

 

October 17, 2013  (I was 68)

 

I walk the invisible dog in the park

It follows without a leash

Sometimes other people’s dogs

half know the invisible dog is there

There is no canine confrontation

My attention is invisibly occupied

Other dogs chase squirrels that can see

The invisible dog chases nothing

I do not know where it sleeps  I do not feed it

It does not arrive in the car with me

Many dog walkers bag the defecations

Many of us do not  I go unnoticed

I don’t know what kind of shit the invisible dog leaves behind

It is not my intention to walk the dog

I am here for the exercise the light the serenity

which I achieve only in moments the dog minds itself

Most of the time it trots alongside

close enough for me to count its breaths

It is not in the car when I drive to the rest of my day

The distant wail diminishes but does not cease

I’d like the invisible dog to successfully run away

Whatever path I walk I remain a familiar scent

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