There is a Season
One last shovel-turning of the worm-full garden space and on into winter — accompanied by this thought: maybe the time has come to write less, and dig more. December 3, 2021 . [ 1308 ]
Call to Joy
Every breath is a call to the joy of consciousness. If I’m afraid of that consciousness coming to an end, or try to think of ways I can hold onto it forever, the joy immediately slips away. Joy then becomes just one more word in a numbing, distracting intellectual exercise in which I’m both martyr and hero. When that happens, the moment simply goes on without me. It doesn’t matter […]
Ages and Pages
Yesterday morning we dug the dahlias, and in the afternoon I manured the ground for planting next spring. Fluffed and raised from digging, the space looks like a new grave. This morning, the tubers having been cleaned, separated into smaller clumps, and dried, we tucked them away in peat moss for their winter nap in the garage. The apricot tree is bare and fruit buds for next year’s crop are […]
Poetry Saves Lives
Let us say, for the moment, that poetry saves lives. Then, let us imagine a world in which only those who can afford to pay for it, are able to go on living. Meanwhile, old people and young, children and in between, are dying everywhere — all for the want of poetry. Some will shrug and say, That is the way of the world. And others will say, It’s only […]
Canvas 953 — Face to Face
Passing / even in death / may our expressions / bring peace to the world. November 29, 2021 Canvas 953 July 1, 2017 . [ 1304 ]
Canvas 120 — Here Before
Life, a familiar echo, a hound on the porch, the sweet pull of smoke; You say I’ve been away, and I dare must believe it; Or how, does your hand, cause the beating, of my heart? “Here Before”Recently Banned Literature, December 4, 2014 Canvas 120 December 8, 2010 . [ 1303 ]
Canvas 479 — A Poem, a Drawing, a Life
A poem of so many lines going every which way,it becomes a drawing; A drawing of so few lines its breath gives way,to reveal a poem in hiding; A life thought mine sailing away,free of the binds I was tying. “A Poem, a Drawing, a Life”Recently Banned Literature, November 30, 2014 Canvas 479 November 26, 2014 . [ 1302 ]
Uncertain Terms
Alternating between two wide dirt roads on either side of an even wider river, my father driving, asking which road I preferred, changing directions in mid-air, crossing the water and lightly touching down, then continuing on . . . I said any road is fine, they all lead in the right direction — not because I knew, but because he was happy, and I wanted him to go on enjoying […]
Whispers Autumn
Now / again / when it’s too late, begin / especially then / old friend. November 24, 2021 . [ 1300 ]
Incidental
Shown by a leaf — service is not a doctrine, but the heart of the tree. November 23, 2021 . [ 1299 ]
William Michaelian 
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