Gosh it’s been so long since I have posted anything on this blog. I apologize for my dormancy. Life has invaded my writing space, as family and work obligations have kept me preoccupied. I am still pecking away at some long-term creative projects—nothing worth mentioning at the moment, since the completion of my goals seems very far off. So this is just a brief dispatch, a few scattered words to let anyone who may be interested—very few people I’m sure—know that I am still here, I am still active, I am still writing. And since I feel compelled to leave you with something more valuable than my aimless sentences, here is a new photo of my toddler son Colin. Who doesn’t like cute kid pictures?

Colin Joseph DiClemente. Age 2 years, 8 months.

And here is an excerpt from “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which I have been reading via the Kindle app on my iPhone. A possible interpretation of the passage eludes me, but I found the words stirring nonetheless.

From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard …
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease …
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.