Canvas 1,151
If I let go of sorrow, and pain, should I not also be willing to let go of joy? For if I cling, do I not cling to everything? September 27, 2019. The last fine sliver of a waning moon. [ 524 ]
Nothing
Nothing but a ring of sand traced by hand around the ankle. Nothing but a change of weather in the hair. Nothing but a wrist amiss and blind as daytime passion. Nothing but a rising tide . . . a fragrant breath . . . a vision there. September 26, 2019 [ 523 ]
In Light Of
Someone says the bright new mushrooms shine like lanterns by the walk. . . . the moon? In Light Of Twenty-six degrees this morning. I wonder what I would do if I were a star? Shine like the rest of them, I suppose. And perhaps be gone by the time my light is seen in this faraway world. Lantern is a word I love. I wonder how old I […]
Canvas 1,168 — One in the Afternoon
If it can be held, it can also be released. There have been other thoughts today. But I do not remember them. September 24, 2019 [ 521 ]
Joy
Oh, the fall rains! Day and night, mushrooms sprout in tender grass, and crowd my little hut. And look! Here lie my bones! September 23, 2019 [ 520 ]
Dear Ones
If I had not known desperation, could I now know calm? What does the house feel, when it’s pelted with cones? If I had not known fear, could I now know love? What does the house dream, when the sun warms its bones? dahlias in the rain bowed heads weak stems she brings them in [ 519 ]
Fall Questions
Is it confidence, or arrogance? If we are honest with ourselves and with others, if we are doing our best at whatever our work happens to be at the moment, if we are grateful and attentive and enjoying the health that sacred, lucky combination brings, why would we also need to feel confident, as if we hold, or are seeking, some advantage? Is it because confidence is universally praised, and […]
At the End of a Wooden Handle
If man were meant to fly, he would have been given wings. And then the teacher died, never quite imagining. Dear old, poor old soul — and so they buried him in poetry. At the End of a Wooden Handle This glorious day, right where you find it, at the end of a wooden handle, (picture a tool no one understands or remembers how to use) part butterfly part […]
All Ye Who Enter
In 1851, in a journal entry written in late-September, Thoreau writes in its own separate paragraph the following sentence: The poet writes the history of his body. This statement, or observation, occurs seemingly out of the blue, between references to the growth pattern of pine trees and the tendency of a certain kind of grass to burn slowly and steadily without flame. In Part 2 of Clarel, his 18,000-line poem […]
Hoh Rain Forest
Rain, in such volume, with such force, and the cedar, unperturbed, a solemn drinker at closing time — yes, what is wisdom worth in this leaky house of mine? September 18, 2019 Hoh Rain Forest July 20, 2010 One saw swans back then. Another, fingers, hands. I saw faces. I see them again. [ 515 ]
William Michaelian 