Canvas 503
before / after / the wind / no wind January 2, 2021 Canvas 503January 2, 2015 . [ 974 ]
Snow Lessons
Your face is calendar enough for me, the lines, the seasons — what need of dates, where light and touch and grace agree? January 1, 2021 . Snow Lessons To write with the breath, to draw without touching a thing. Are these not snow lessons, and the patient teachings of steam? You say, This pen. This page. These keys. How can I not touch them? And from deep inside comes […]
Melting
I wonder now, was that a doily on her armchair, or a snowflake on the dollhouse of a long-dead child? Recently Banned Literature, May 26, 2014 . [ 972 ]
Change Your Face
A very rough night — but I did intercept the pass; and if only the field were not so far below, I could have run to the goal line, instead of laboriously treading air until my much delayed, unnoticed, unheralded arrival. Such are the rewards of greatness. More disturbing, however, was the haunted figure intent on changing faces, the last of which was the full moon. Change your face, I […]
A Child’s Christmas
A great many years ago, my mother accidentally dropped a copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám out of the library window. About thirty years later, I saw it on my brother’s bookshelf. She’d inscribed it to him as a gift! . A Child’s Christmas Whence this peace falling into this upturned palm? . [ 970 ]
Mountain Madman
While walking early this morning I remembered that John Muir once wrote about how the giant conifers in the high mountains of California rejoiced in storms. He knew, because he was out among them when the primitive, savage breath raged upon the peaks, across the waters, and through the meadows, glens, and canyons. His words were a lesson — as resistance would have been far more destructive to these great […]
Robin
Last night I dreamed I saw a bright, beautiful robin, with striking marks around his eyes. He stood before me in the grass. He did not say. I did not ask. December 24, 2020 . [ 967 ]
Prodigal Hands
Sometimes I think that without these writings,I would drift off into space like a child’s balloon. Sometimes I think I already have. Sometimes I rejoice in the return of my prodigal hands,and do not ask where they have been. Sometimes I am not I, but the wind. Sometimes I find this body by the road,and wonder if it might be something I said. Sometimes I simply bow my head. Field […]
Solstice
The pandemic has claimed the life of our neighbor. She was a kindhearted widow, eighty-two years old. The day after visiting her on Thanksgiving, her son died from the same cause. Yesterday evening, Saturn and Jupiter were hidden by fast-moving clouds. December 22, 2020 . Solstice The longest day is the shortest somewhere else a ripe plum fallen in decay half hidden by dead leaves and the promises they made […]
William Michaelian 
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