My major task today was checking, sorting old photographs, mostly slides, but also some prints.  All day the past kept moving into my consciousness.  I looked at images of people and places, mostly at images I captured a long time ago, and I tried to decide what to do with them.  It was hard to throw away anything, even the smallest least significant thing.  I’m finally getting around to doing the first part of something that I’ve said I must do someday.  Now is the time. I recognize those people in the pictures standing by a seaside or before a mountain. I’ve lived in many places and have known many people.   Memory is mostly a good thing, a sweet thing.  Even those pictures of me that someone else took, the ones that show mustache and hair still brown, were of someone I remember fondly. 

MEMORY

Am I

the one

quivering there in mist?

Memory…

a dream of the past

years stretching back

pictures

of a boy

innocent

almost innocent

how could he know

the world swallows everything…

especially people?

Saturday, November 17, 1990