12.31.2025 – life not segmented

life not segmented
months, years, dawns, noons, evenings, night
rather moods, traumas

Life is not segmented artificially by what we call days,

months,

years,

dawns,

noons,

evenings,

night;

rather, life is segmented by our moods,

impressions,

traumas,

odd transferences of power from inanimate objects—

the aesthetic principle—

dreams,

linked by time spans of loves

and hates

and indifference,

unexpected changes in the prism of our understanding,

areas of passion or lust that disappear in a moment,

lapsing into a kind of sloth,

dread

and slowness …

From Sundog: a novel : the story of an American foreman, Robert Corvus Strang, as told to Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Washington Square Press: New York, 1989).

1,000s of titles on my devices and nothing is catching my interest.

Can’t get into any of the novels I had such high hopes for when I got them with the idea that I could lose myself for a day or two.

So I end up back in Jim Harrison’s Sundog which again I realize is needlessly profane, off color and inappropriate in so many ways and yet with such a powerful use of language that I come back to again and again.

This passage I found particularly appropriate for the day when we review the the top 25 of everything because of it being the end of the year.

Hard to think that the passage of time, the revolutions of the earth and the orbit of the planets are artificial segments used to divide up life but I find that I cannot argue with the thought that life is not segmented artificially by what we call days, months, years, dawns, noons, evenings, night; rather, life is segmented by our moods, impressions, traumas, odd transferences of power from inanimate objects—the aesthetic principle—dreams, linked by time spans of loves and hates and indifference, unexpected changes in the prism of our understanding, areas of passion or lust that disappear in a moment, lapsing into a kind of sloth, dread and slowness….

12.30.2025 – to sleep the sleep of

to sleep the sleep of
the apples, get far away
from the busyness

I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
I want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries.
I want to sleep the sleep of that child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

I don’t want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood,
how the decaying mouth goes on begging for water.
I’d rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for
nor about how the moon does all its work before dawn
with its snakelike nose.

I want to sleep for half a second,
a second, a minute, a century,
but I want everyone to know that I am still alive,
that I have a golden manger inside my lips,
that I am the little friend of the west wind,
that I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears.

When it’s dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me
because I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me,
and pour a little hard water over my shoes
so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off.

Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,
because I want to live with that shadowy child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

Kind of sums up 2025 in many ways.

12.29.2025 – I took the one less

I took the one less
traveled by and that has made
all the difference

Main Road on Pinckney Island NWR on Dec 28, 2025

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost as published in Complete Poems of Robert Frost by Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart and Winston: New York, 1949).

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

12.28.2025 – my life is a stroll

my life is a stroll
upon beach, as near ocean’s
edge as I can go

Driessen Beach – Hilton Head Island, Dec 27,2025.

My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean’s edge as I can go;
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o’erreach,
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

My sole employment is, and scrupulous care,
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,—
Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,
Which Ocean kindly to my hand confides.

I have but few companions on the shore:
They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;
Yet oft I think the ocean they’ve sailed o’er
Is deeper known upon the strand to me.

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view;
Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,
And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew.

The Fisher’s Boy by Henry Thoreau as published in Poems of nature )Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: Boston , 1895).

In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, Clarence the Angel famously disproves the existence of George Bailey by listing all the forms of identification George no longer has.

Clarence says, “There is no George Bailey. You have no papers, no cards, no driver’s license, no 4-F card, no insurance policy… No Zuzu’s petals.”

I wonder what do we accomplish even when we carry those papers?

Our lives may be a rock dropped into a small pool (or a large one) where ripples on the surface have impact beyond out knowing.

But for ourselves?

I stroll the beach whenever I can.

As near the ocean’s shore I can go.

My tardy steps its waves sometimes overreach.

Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.

I will leave a trail of footprints to show where my feet have been.

But in a couple of hours, the tide comes and all evidence of me is erased.

So Mr. Thoreau warns to place your gains beyond the reach of the tides.

Along the shore, my hand is on the pulse.

Place your gains beyond the reach of the tides.

Keep Zuzu’s petals in your pocket.

It’s a wonderful life.

12.27.2025 – sleepless reduces past

sleepless reduces past
awesome, distorted essence
of all we have met

Adapted from the passage:

It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat. Insomnia opens the door to previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon, and any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies; we learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins, the backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret. The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.

From Sundog: a novel : the story of an American foreman, Robert Corvus Strang, as told to Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Washington Square Press Collection: New Yor, 1989).

It had to happen didn’t it?

I am now of the age when too much can impact my sleep, but on the other hand, when hasn’t too much impacted my sleep.

I mean how many plates of turkey, pieces of pie, chunks of chocolate, handfuls of cookies covered in icing and gallons of drink can one person imbibe and not pay for it later?

It was little surprise that laying down my brain and my stomach where both operating at 1000mph.

A Christmas carol earwig was stuck in my mind and maybe Dicken’s Christmas Carol was on my mind as well as it started.

The previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon.

Any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies.

We learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins.

The backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret.

The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.

It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat.

God bless us, everyone.

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