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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Friday, December 31, 2021

The truth is so basic so fundamental

 

from this week in 2008  (I was 64) 

 

The truth is so basic so fundamental

only faith can ignore it

No man owns land

no race defines place

No land was a divine gift

Alive we occupy

but we arrive and leave landless

False needs are the seeds

 

All the other justifications

the wars the treaties the boundaries

the claims the writs the water rights

the promises the deeds

(indeed the deeds)

are to separate the greeds

between that that we have

and that that we want

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