If I fear death, then of course I fear life, because life and death can’t be separated: they’re mutually dependent, present in every process, inextricably intertwined. For proof, I need look no further than my body, where life and death are happening every minute of every day — not as a battle between the two, but in a movement so beautifully efficient and harmonious that it makes them, in terms […]
Whatever the conditions, where a tree sprouts is where it must live its life. Out of this grows its patience and wisdom. Trees know how to wait, to bide their time, to conserve their energy and use it to their best, most joyful advantage; this in turn becomes their gift to the world. As I have aged, my bark has grown shaggy; knots have formed where my trunk and limbs […]
Now that I think of it, No Tobacco, a poem that is a story that is a poem, fits nicely within the style or genre known as Magical Realism. What happens in it is to me, though, an everyday reality, because reality, while impossible to define, is a magical experience. When I say impossible, I mean it’s impossible for me, no doubt in part because I don’t need or want […]
Why a poem, why a poem at all, if not to pause, if not to feel, if not to wonder, if not to see? Maybe we are stained, dented, and urine-soaked; we are also faithful, observant, and kind. But are we ultimately helpless, even as we shine? ~ [ 2024 ]
Layer upon layer: remove a thought, or even a word, and the image comes tumbling down. That’s one way of looking at it. Fearful symmetry: that’s another, the youthful tyger burning bright. Or, space in a face: the gladsome light of extinguished stars. Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee? ’Tis all a mystery. ~ [ 2023 ]
Where Dragonflies Sleep starts my memory in so many agreeable directions, it would take hours to account for them all, if I ever came to the end. This brings to mind a question: is my memory infinite? Is it even possible to know? And what of ancestral memory, cultural memory, bodily memory, and the collective memory of our kind? And isn’t instinct a form of memory which, having existed for […]
I’ve just noticed for the first time that this true event reads like a dream — in fact, more like a dream than some of the dreams I’ve recorded. Now, what do you suppose that means? And what does it mean that the memory of the event also seems like a dream? Does it mean memory, in general, is a dream? When I say, No, this really happened, do I […]
Easy, comfortable, perhaps even comforting — there’s nothing provocative or challenging here, no trauma or turmoil, only the familiar voice of someone remembering, imagining, reliving episodes from his childhood and beyond. Writing for writing’s sake. Writing to find out what might surface that day, as one day follows another, and the nights with their twitches and dreams, while a vast amount remains out of reach — or seems to, because […]
You can look at this canvas for half an hour and see little or nothing. Or you can surrender to it and see everything, and imagine even more. It depends on how hustled and harried you are, how busy, how important, how judgmental, how sure, how willing to be open or blind. What you do and what you see will be the result of your own vision and experience. It […]
Rural beginnings — how they cling to one. I still have a good feel for the size of an acre, and imagine open fields planted in the crops we used to grow. And if I had a dollar for every time I’ve said, “That’s a good place for watermelons,” I’d be wealthy indeed — until I spent the money on books. Then I’d be really wealthy. A split and a […]
William Michaelian 