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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Thursday, October 7, 2021

October Walk

 

October 7, 1973  (I was 28)

 

         October Walk

It rained through the night;

it was raining today at last light.

Electric moss lit the trees.

Slick leaves and ferns on the ground

gave light without the sky.

The deer paths needed hooves,

but I climbed to see clouds hurdle the west ridge,

dark riders pulling the wave and tearing away.

First I wanted it all on film,

wanted to record the echoing dogs still howling

and the quiet interrogations of every owl

on this day when the sun did not appear.

But nobody believes a movie.

Rising from a stand of oaks

a column of ground fog found warm currents,

spiraling spirit freed and fleeing home.

It was perception that made it all real;

it was a vapor perceiving a vaporizing.

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