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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Saturday, December 25, 2021

San Giovanni Battista –A. del Sarto

 

December 25, 1973  (I was 29)    

 

…from a photo of the painting

San Giovanni Battista –A. del Sarto

 

How softly young skin holds new muscle.

Are you so carefully off to tempt temptation,

or are you so successfully returned?

The last glance, and the first of home again, are the same.

The unmarked bodies of the unaffected traveler

And the unvanquished warrior are the same,

But the brow and the lips are not the same.

You carry your commission like a victory cup.

You carry a reed cross loosely lashed.

Certainly there are distant places you have been.

If you are weathered it does not show on you.

The perspiration has only curled your hair.

The difficult work is yet to come.

 

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