In a beginning.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
I was driving, just down the road here, a couple of days ago, when I was thinking about writing another poem. I wondered what it would be like to write a piece that showed the evolution of the poem. And what if the poem itself was about evolution?
evolution
2026-06-13 09:53 UTC
I woke up at an ungodly hour and my mind started churning, thinking about this project, evolution. I'm not going to be able to keep track of all the ideas that I have or the order in which I have them. So, I'll just have to get this down as best I can. I imagine that what is lost is part of evolution itself.
Is evolution the title?
evolution
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Or is it actually in the poem?
lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
evolution
Ugh. Forget the title for now.
evolution
As I was tossing and turning I was wondering how scientific I should get about evolution.
And I recalled seeing illustrations of the progression of man from early hominid to Homo sapiens, The March of Progress.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
And I contemplated, still while layiing bed, whether evolution is always positive. That does seem to be the way we take it when we talk about psychological evolution.
evolution,I'm not sure what this is meaning yet. Just that it's emerging. Clearly what's coming up for me are the twists and turns of life. I'm playing a little bit with "anew," starting again. Then talking about roads and branches. Versus going right to "a new road." I don't know if that'll stay. I'm also not sure how long this poem is going to be. Whether it'll be much of a series. But maybe it's a method to keep experimenting with over different poems.
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken.
More later.
Ugh. I can't leave yet. I have to tell you. I totally forgot the main thing that came to me when I was tossing and turning in bed. I originally thought about this being a web page that laid out the evolution of the poem. But what if I told people that I was doing this and this was just my first entry? And what if people could follow along as I wrestled with the poem? This is terrifying. Clearly I was avoiding this.
I'm going to tell you now.
2026-06-16 09:37 UTC
I survived.
Doing work on the farm to help prepare the land to support pollinators, I was thinking of the intricate interrelationships between all the life I was encountering. People included. We tend to thnk of the evolution of a specific species or the evolution of a project. Or we tell a story, in retrospect, about our own personal evolution. And so, what does this mean for the poem?
evolution,
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken,
you and i.
We don't evolve separately. Or do we? Is this felt sense of interdependence illusory? I don't think so.
evolution,
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken,
you and i.
our days
meander,
wandering together
and apart.
The last several lines...I'm just laying down the idea. The language is almost certainly going to change.
2026-06-19 09:59 UTC
evolution,
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken,
you and i.
our days
meander,together
wandering
and apart.
A lot of the writing is about taking things out.
evolution,
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken,
you and i.
our days
together
and apart.
do you miss
me?
The poem is doing something different here. Maybe off topic. Don't know what it is and I'm finding myself judging. I'll let it sit a while.
2026-06-19 10:30 UTC
evolution,
forward and
back.
then anew.
road or branch,
the other path
taken,
you and i.
our days
together
and apart.
do you miss
me?
pain is a
pointer,
the growing edge
of what will
fall away.
The painful spots, the neediness, the wounds are the openings to the growth, the evolution. The things within us that we'll let go of. Eventually.
And what will be left?