The owl I heard down the street a few weeks ago has taken up temporary residence in the fir trees behind our house. I hear it often in the evening when returning from my walk, and I hear it again this morning. Of course, I only think it’s the same owl. There seems to be only one in the neighborhood. And from my poetic-unscientific perspective, thinking and seeming are enough. […]
2010
From Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen
I look more like this drawing now than I did then.
Winter Sun
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Behind the house, there are two kinds of white birch. One is the papery kind that sheds scrolls which look to me like ancient texts or musical scores. Its leaves are fewer and larger, and they fall much earlier. The other has a trunk that’s more rough and grooved. Its leaves are much smaller; there are thousands and thousands of them, and they fall like pale-yellow snowflakes well into December, […]
Winter is the perfect time to start a regimen of cold early-morning showers. I begin with water that is lukewarm. Then, as I wash, I steadily move to cool. I finish in cold. I enjoy the cold phase for three minutes or so. The result? Any soreness, stiffness, or sluggishness I might have had is gone, and I am ready and raring to go. Best of all, the mind is […]
May my wants and my needs always be one and the same. I want a larger coaster to place under the teacup I brought home from the thrift store, because the coaster I have is too small. I need the teacup because I broke the old one when I was washing it. The sink is hard, like petrified whale bone. But I do not want a new sink. I need […]
In a dream last night, I was visited by one, or two, or three white-haired gentlemen I apparently should have known, but who were only vaguely familiar. They knew my name, but I did not know theirs. They seemed to be waiting for me to remember. Finally, I confessed I was at a loss, upon which one gave me a hint, a rather long and mystical-sounding title of a musical […]
My never-to-be-published writings really don’t amount to much — a few hundred thousand words at most, represented by two or three thick typescripts, quite a few stories, and dozens of poems. And when I say never-to-be-published, I mean that they are going directly into the flames. They had to be written; how else was I to learn? That purpose served, now they can be thrown away. And while I might […]
Child that I am, I see the wonders of this world as one great, living, moving consciousness; and, from snail to star, I see each discernible part as an expression of that consciousness. I do not see them as higher or lower forms, or judge them according to a scale of narrow, preconceived worth. Neither do I see myself as being conscious in an otherwise unconscious world, or a world […]
More often than not, when writing the first words of the day, I feel I’m returning from a long absence or great distance. Maybe I am. Each sound is a powerful summons. The tables and chairs have grown roots. And the house — is it moving? Am I at sea? Morning Sounds When their horns echo in the mist, I’m half-convinced the trains have turned to ships. I go […]
Certainly you must like the idea of being a page held fast by a child’s soft thumb, and plied by a mind untried by no trial or grief beyond ordinary hunger and thirst, no fear, no loss, no doubt, or question of worth. Or would you rather be the child you think, you remember, you are, you were? Both, I’m sure. A Bedtime Story Read it again, Daddy. I […]
William Michaelian 