So much of what I post here; what I find myself typing across the screen - it comes from notebooks I wrote in ten, even twenty plus years ago. Today, reading through an old journal, what struck me was how little I've changed - in some crucial or pivotal way. My 'voice' maybe, but also the content it surrounds. That surprises me - the ruminations and visions of my twenty year old self share my breath in this moment and still speak to me. I'd want to add, that juxtaposed to this, in paradox and tension, I've also grown and healed and changed in many ways. I'd want to add this ... and sometimes I believe it to be so, but then again ... then again, while reading these words from decades ago, I'm not sure. Most of the posts here are 'old' poems - resurfacing and surging in quiet, gentle violence - intensity when I read them and they feel - still - like me now - at least during the time I spend with them here. They touch me and they touch upon places in me. Sometimes its a place I thought I'd lost - but nothing is lost - the heart is self contained - if things fall away inside me they are still inside. Pieces move or get stuck behind other pieces but they are all still here. Not sure what conclusion to draw from this. "Drawing conclusions" isn't so important to me - too often they lend a false comfort through tidying things up that are just fine - and more authentic somehow - left 'messy.' They can sound good but they do little more than that. If I was worried about 'sounding good,' much of what makes up this blog wouldn't be here at all. There is something deeper - or perhaps higher - baser and loftier and vague and obstruse and incisive and specific -all at once ... all at once and then some - and it pulls and pushes and calls and informs me. It's says something about passion and hope but also honors the intensity of anguish and despair. Not all emotions or feelings as found in verse sound 'healthy.' Perhaps their unrest and dis-ease are part of their beauty - if only because they're real and stripped bare and brave enough to speak out - through whatever venue. So more than anything it may be my love affair with language. That is what it is. That is what persists.