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 ]
Drawings
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 ]
Canvas 1,241 — Pounds, Ponds, Thumbs
Thoreau’s journal, the second of fourteen volumes, done. At age thirty-four, he weighed one hundred twenty-seven pounds. He would venture out on moonlight nights and bathe in ponds. When I closed the book, I found berry juice on my thumbs. [ 506 ]
Canvas 301 — Clouds
Wondered the child, Is God in the clouds, or are the clouds in God? And God said, That is a question I love. And the child sang low. And the child sang on. [ 504 ]
At the Ruins
Of our love, may others say they are moved to poetry. Of our foolishness, may they say they are moved to love. [ 503 ]
Experience is a word. Words are beautiful.
And that is why I’m a pilgrim in this world.
Canvas 422 — August 31, 2014
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Canvas 422 — Experience
Cricket in the fern, cricket in the bush —
oh, the lovers who never meet in this world,
turned poets, one by one, like us!
Minstrel
Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen, 2010
[ 498 ]
Minstrel
If this is the letter O,
I can only wonder about the rest of the alphabet,
and what brings on these spells.
The Letter O — August 26, 2019
In a Vast White Space
A little boy, with a little apple and sticky hands,
busy the spirits about him, busy the wind,
many the voices, solemn, joyous,
in a vast white space,
written in plain white words,
a white ball chased by a wide white hound,
an alphabet of snow,
and you, with your funny little arrows,
ink-tipped, turned upon yourself,
in a vast white space, an apple,
turning red.
Recently Banned Literature, June 2, 2014
(written on the nineteenth anniversary of my father’s death)
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The Letter O — In a Vast White Space
Canvas 298 — August 21, 2013
More Than Anything
Love does not say, “See the bad man.”
Love says, “Come, let us find the good in ourselves.”
Love does not heap shame on those who are lost.
Love remains near, that they may be found.
Love does not say, “This one, but not this one.”
Love says, “In good time, all.”
Love does not wait with a flag at the wall.
Love is a lantern in your heart, filled with starlight.
Love does not say, “Peace is a dream.”
Love says, “Love, more than anything.”
Recently Banned Literature, November 22, 2016
Essays and Collections, November 2016: Poems and Passages
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Canvas 298 — More Than Anything
To the blue, I leave you, and to the oranges and reds.
For you know where the peaches fell,
And where the plums, and the pomegranates, bled.
Canvas 1,240 — August 20, 2019
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William Michaelian 