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, January 7, 2022

Not in it a fog on the ocean

 

January 7, 2011  (I was 66) 

 

Not in it a fog on the ocean

viewed from a high cliff under a blue sky

drifts in pleasing mystery

breaking here and there to reveal

waves spattering on sharp rock

or swirling eddies of every color

through the vapor

In it on the ocean there is no sky

and the cliff a ghost you don’t want to hear

too close looming unseen

open mouth baring teeth

and sloshing hungry saliva

in your face

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