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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Tuesday, November 2, 2021

I was in a snowstorm in Duluth

 

November 2, 1973  (I was 28)

 

I was in a snowstorm in Duluth

may sound like the lead line of a joke

to some but to me it was beautiful

It was night

and every white star sped to the ground

or hit and clung to the brownstone church

as we in our wet shoes

skidded down the steep streets

where no car could go

all the way down

past the heavy trees and god’s church

all the way down to Superior Street

and we threw snow at each other

some time ago

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