Canvas 360 — February 17, 2014
Poem
Light
is
my
prayer.
Poems, Slightly Used, March 9, 2011
[ 291 ]
Still Farming
As an old farmer of the written word, I know that in my deepest cultivation I’m really just scratching the surface, and that the strange crops I bring forth, the cactus and the flower, are food of brief duration, and that when I’m gone, the land I care for and hold dear will be safe harbor for my feeble literary bones. Once, many years ago, while we were engaged in […]
Discovery
Above rooftops and trees, between clouds, there is a familiar collection of stars and planets — a small gathering of faithful friends, inspiring and nonjudgmental. And yet how many millions of miles and years are between them? And what of the space between us? Surely, it is imagined. Discovery Late one night, when he was very old, they found the great astronomer holding a ruler at arm’s length, measuring […]
Stars Are Eyes and Minds Are Mirrors
It should be clear by these pages that I lead a very simple, quiet life. For what do I write about, really, other than this little place I occupy, and the steps I take daily to traverse it? And yet, this little place is part of a much bigger place, and the bigger place is part of limitless space. And limitless space — who knows that it might not be […]
Syllables
What are the great questions? And if I were asked them one by one, what would be my answer? Life, death, God, love, philosophy, religion, good, evil, war — would it merely be a recycled version of what others have said, a hearsay ego-bath arrived at second-hand, or would I offer something entirely new and of the moment, a revelation of an exploration without expectation, ever free in flight with […]
Canvas 358 — February 11, 2011
Starry Night
Dear old face,
lined deep to harbor cookie crumbs.
All the mice and men
who’ve held you,
forgotten,
every
one.
Poems, Slightly Used, February 27, 2011
[ 286 ]
Canvas 358 — Starry Night
Day of the Dead
Twenty-six-degrees, and a walk through the frozen neighborhood before sunrise — an exhilarating way to start the day. I was careful, of course, to pick up my feet, ice being what it is, and bones being what they are. On the snowy parts, where cars had not been, the crunch of my footsteps was loud enough to wake the dead, if they were not awake already. Day of the […]
Clouds
There are mornings when the mind has no particular need or desire for clarity. Or it might not be the mind at all; it might be the world that has no need or desire to show herself — as if she’s just out of the bath, her skin fragrant and naked and warm, and in no hurry to put on the day. How foolish the mind would be to say, […]
Inheritance — February 8, 2019
Inheritance
Every winter,
we pruned
the same
long
rows
of vines.
Now we’re older;
some of us have died.
I see the vineyard in my mind:
the brush is tangled, leafless, waiting.
Songs and Letters, February 4, 2007
Winter Poems, Cosmopsis Books, 2007
[ 283 ]
Inheritance
Newborn
Our grandsons were here, together and warm in their grandmother’s chair, talking about football. I went out for a walk after supper. It was cold, but not too: twenty-nine degrees; still, but not blue: the breath of a breeze. The stars were out. The Big Dipper was standing on its end: pirouette. No one was out: no cat, nor dog, no cleared throat. Bare trees: ghosts: roses: smoke: fir is […]
William Michaelian 