My mother writing Christmas cards, late into the night. The darkest time. The greatest light. December 6, 2019 A Thimbleful of Ash If you don’t eat your supper, Santa won’t visit us tonight. All the cookies will go to waste, the cards, the toys, the bows. A fire in the fireplace. The front door left unlocked. Somehow, Santa knows. On the porch, a stack of wood. Long lives, a […]
They’ll say we knew each other, that we spoke to each other in poems, and that when at long last evening fell, we were solemn, we were still. December 4, 2019. Evening. Imagine a Word Imagine a word deep in its image, and a page in an ice age burning for warmth. Imagine a tongue that is fire, before learning to speak. Imagine the ashes, and what they are […]
The autumn that began so early and that was so promising in terms of rain, has given way to a stagnant winter, even before winter has quite arrived. This morning, every molecule of vehicle exhaust hangs low in the street, held in place by fog. Wood smoke is a relief tantamount to fresh air. Inside, at least, one is able to mask the pollution with the scent of simple home […]
Reality A love note from the sky that begins with I, followed by my reply. December 3, 2019 [ 589 ]
If I have any wish or dream at all, it is to know at death what I knew when I was born; the quest is love; the rest is now. December 2, 2019 [ 588 ]
A winter afternoon spent trying this word and that word and erasing them both, until the room I am in is given to darkness — even death agrees — if not with the method, then at least with the progress. Given Suddenly a ripe plum and how her sweet flesh aches in the mouth in memory of melted snow running down a country road [ 587 ]
Memory’s a sturdy leaf — sycamore, say, or valley oak, placed beneath a sheet of grade school paper fleck’d and grain’d, and a crayon in your hand — rubb’d across its ribs and veins, it surfaces in your chosen color — and all you love begins again — father, mother, supper table, open kitchen window — and somewhere, off in the distance, carry’d nigh by the divine providence of dust […]
Was it the childhood study of bird tracks that first led him to writing, Or the sacred marks his mother made in her crusts and loaves? And then there was the night sky, with its patient verse of constellations. It might have been those. Whatever it meant to be alone . . . He loved it well and tried to write just like them. Then it snowed . . . […]
When you see young children living and working their beautiful miracles, do you smile and say, They are something at that age, or, We are something at that age? They, or we — the difference, I think, is a great one, and tells much about you. The same might be asked of how you view those who are far ahead of you in years. Because the very young and the […]
Out from a room heavy with light and oppressive with talk and laughter, into the sweet chocolate night, the wood smoke, and fog — and no one knows me when I return; but my body is familiar to them, my hat and my hair — they recognize my clothes and are satisfied. Maybe that’s all I was to them before? A ghost, a mirror, nothing more? [ 582 ]
William Michaelian 