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.


Comments Welcome!

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

revelation in Oberammergau

 

December 29, 2003  (I was 59) 

 

   revelation in Oberammergau

Non-Germans in the street

create spaces as they walk.

Women shop the windows,

men don’t know what to do;

they blow their noses and wait.

What does it mean?

To what does it allude?

 

Kofel was visible an hour ago,

the fog descends tree to tree,

skiers can’t see each other.

The Alps have disappeared,

the mist enters the village.

What does it mean?

To what does it allude?

 

People visit the theater

where no performance is held;

the look at props and sets

and at where the orchestra sits

during a very famous performance.

What does it mean?

To what does it allude?

 

Suddenly at thirteen hundred forty meters

the cross appears on Kofel

illuminated through sun-shredded cloud;

visitors who left to visit the Passionate Scene

return to report another passionate scene.

To what does it allude

and what does it mean?

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