When I refer to my body as it, I feel I am being unfair. But would him be any more accurate? Would her? And why my, when, if there is any belonging at all, the belonging belongs to the earth? January 5, 2022 . And Here Is a Child I love, too, those thoughts that almost rise, almost begin, then vanish, content to seek no substance or body, and whose […]
Forty-seven degrees. Across the street, the big bare tree behind the neighbor’s house is full of starlings, so many it sounds like spring. Earlier, from the front window, I saw a squirrel jump from the edge of the roof into the cedar. Such a leap would not have been possible a year ago — the tree has grown that much. In that spirit, I am making a small leap myself. […]
The world owes me nothing. It gives me everything. I can claim that I have what I have through my own effort, but it simply isn’t so. I have what I have because life is in me and I am in life. I have awareness and breath. I need nothing else. And when they leave this body, they will take that need with them. The sudden arrival of about a […]
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 ]
Trees are not only trees: they pretend to be trees. They know I am used to seeing and thinking of them as trees, and are kind enough to act accordingly. At the same time, like me, they are what they are by virtue of a process that disperses and combines everything in the universe to arrive at something familiar, yet always original and new. And so now, in effect, it […]
I skipped coffee yesterday. That was a mistake. September 15, 2021 . A Song on the Stove I made some good coffee this morning. The taste varies, you know. I use an old pot. It’s the one my parents used back in the day. No special science, simply a perking paradise of memory and aroma. We’d go camping in the mountains and the pot would go with us. Or company […]
Sometimes I want to reach out, but I don’t feel like writing, or drawing, or conversing. And so I become a ghost, or a waterfall, or a storm. Chances are, that’s when we met. Recently Banned Literature, November 30, 2010 . [ 1184 ]
Three vultures atop a dead tree at the edge of Goose Lake. The water has receded; the surface is crowded again with lilies. Around the edge, a dense colony of Sagittaria latifolia, the potato-like tubers of which, according to Lewis and Clark, were prized by the natives and filled their canoes during their watery harvest. Wapato. In bloom and attracting bees on the main trail, the fuzzy pink spikes of […]
Chilly dawn. Bare feet. Wet concrete. Writing mossy sidewalk with my toes. March 26, 2021 . [ 1058 ]
William Michaelian 