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, December 26, 2021

Giving was the gift I never had

 

from this week in 2014  (I was 70) 

 

Giving was the gift I never had

What I received I thought I was owed

Though I was the one always in debt

I often reaped what others sowed

 

Told I was the most self-possessed

adopted selective deafness

chose to dismiss the unimpressed

with decisive swiftness

 

Anywhere I was I learned to be alone

In a meeting or celebration

knew how to say nothing well

always found a way to be a stone

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