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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Thursday, February 10, 2022

straw

 

February 10,1974  (I was 29)

 

         straw

The grass on the hillside is tender

the small flowers make their annual proclamation

insects are flying in tandem

The sun opens every pore

releases every fertile fragrance

birdsong fills the canyon

Ignorant man is ignored by nature

the significant ladybug walks along the blade

The bird chorus (so beautiful various and new)

will not be interrupted by a distant car starter

that will not will not start the car

or by the small piston plane sucking air in

to snuff it out again

Both are soon lost in the unconscious melody

and the silent motions of flight

So why have I not renounced my own noise

I take no lasting joy from the mountain

I have mechanical commitments to my own devices

and I am not a bird

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