More With My Hat

Out of the Darkness,
Into the Wilderness
This picture is from the same group I shared with you yesterday. I found the picture in an early "commonplace book." I used it to illustrate a journal-entry type poem titled "The Conspiracy of Love." Under the picture, I wrote the caption you see here. The poem is dated April 1979.

Ironically, the picture I published from Dr. Omed's files is also dated 1979. We were roommates in the summer of that year. Two poets in a duplex.

As the caption suggests, I had come through a dark time. I considered myself as moving toward an uncertain future.

For, moving into the wilderness does not necessarily mean one is walking toward the Promised Land. One could be simply wandering aimlessly for forty years, and never even see the Promised Land — not even from a distance.

Am I now in the Promised Land? I don't know. All I know is that life is better than it was then, a quarter century ago. I know that I might not have made it as far as the wilderness without the consideration and support of Dr. Omed.