Odyssey
A rosy-fingered dawn. Hummingbird, says Agapanthus, this is love. July 27, 2021 . [ 1177 ]
New Poems & Pieces
Canvas 296 — Some of Us
Every day, Nature says, I am willing.And every day, Man, her ungrateful child replies, I am not. (But some of us are! Some of us! And the cry went up.) July 25, 2021 Canvas 296 July 25, 2013 . [ 1175 ]
Pandemia
The United States of Us and Them. The Republic of Either Or. The Union of Right or Wrong. This Side or That. I have lived in each. They called themselves free. But their borders were trash. Their borders were long. So I moved to the land. I moved to the sky. I moved to the sea. I moved to The Burial Ground. . [ 1174 ]
For All Things
Is it possible to love someone — to love each other, to love anyone — and not also love and care for the earth on which we live? Imagine human history if, each step of the way, we had first said, What of the land? What of the sea? What of the sky? What of the rivers? What of the animals? What of all living things? For all things do […]
The Annotated Proverbs of Hell
Once upon a time, a very long short time ago, I “annotated” William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell. Written in 2007 during the months of November and December, my sixty-nine mostly odd, somewhat awkward, likely absurd poetic responses to the Proverbs comprise the entire sixteenth volume of Songs and Letters. The Proverbs are from the 1994 Dover edition of Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Here is the sixth: The […]
How You Bury a Butterfly
Imagine a future museum that preserves the furniture of today — the overstuffed chairs, the massive sofas, the acre-wide, bottomless, bloated beds — and its lean and agile visitors looking on wide-eyed, shaking their heads. Why did they torture themselves? How did they live that way? High in the mountain wilderness, John Muir would use the scented branches of conifers to make a bed for the night. The crystal waters […]
Standing and Crawling
I am on my feet; the laptop is resting on four sleeved volumes — two containing the work of Nora Zeale Hurston, and the others, nine novels from the Harlem Renaissance. The left side of the computer is above and partly hides my old Royal typewriter. To the right, The Life of Langston Hughes. Behind them, Plutarch’s Lives. Behind them, the complete writings of Robert Browning. And behind all that, […]
Moving Day
This morning I saw a hairy spider crawling on the edge of the counter in the bathroom. It was in no hurry. I found the small plastic jar we keep for such situations, guided him into it, covered the top, then released our surprised friend outside, where he trundled off through some dry moss. I try not to sit very often or for very long. I feel better when I […]
Ocean, Boat, Sail
Fresh air and a bright blue sky, with just a few thin white clouds arranging and rearranging themselves, all as if there were no fires in the West, or, for that matter, no trouble, land or sea, anywhere in the world. Out of this there comes the loud scolding voice of a crow in close pursuit of a smaller hawk, the birds matching speeds high above the treetops and rapidly […]
Remember
Everything I eat, everything I wear, everything I use; everything that sustains me and makes my life easier and more comfortable; everything that educates me, everything that stimulates me intellectually and inspires me in the realm of art — these are all proof of how directly my life is related to others, and of how completely I depend on people almost all of whom I will never meet and know. […]
William Michaelian 