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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Monday, August 29, 2022

Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty (4)

 

August 29

 

   Reclining Lady of Six-Eighty  (4)*

I walked the ridge trail olive groves

above the southern access to the hills

climbed deer and critter paths

through the oaks to summit roads

 

my point of view now more western,

more elevated; turkey vultures overhead

Afternoon sun colored but did not warm

the wind blowing my vision eastward

 

Pieces lay in colored cubes of her

abstractions on a newly ordered horizon

separate recognizable her parts

to be reconsidered there from here

 

This old beauty anew again

the possibility of always fresh

she provides in a smile I assume

is there but still have not seen

 

*From a series written from 1998-2001 (I was 53-56)

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