Does a stone in a river resist the current? Or does it let the water wash over and around it and work its will? And when there is drought and the bed is dry, does the stone hide from the scorching sun? Now, if you say a stone simply sits there and that it has no consciousness and therefore no awareness or choice, does that change anything? Does your statement […]
I shot a rabbit once, and have been bleeding ever since. I shot a bird, and now my wings are bent. I shot an arrow at the heavens, and my heart is where it went. I shot my childhood, and this strange long life it sent. I shot my life, and death told me what it meant. I shot my death, and now I sing, and now I dance. [ […]
Everyone who was there is gone. This rain is their conversation — a gust of night air through the open front door, the bark of the dog, the winter crunch of a shoe in the yard. And far off — can you hear it? — a child is being born. All the World’s Children On the most painful of days, all the world’s children come forth bearing flowers: red […]
It’s easy enough to see ourselves in other members of the animal kingdom, especially those with eyes most like our own, those deep pools of joy and sorrow and all else, as found in the neighbor’s dog or on the hill in a thoughtful cow. All are mirrors, all profound. And why not too the wriggling worm, the thorny bush, the rugged stone? Are they not in turn each eyes […]
Have you ever thought we might be thumbprints in the dough?
No? Because that is what I’m thinking now.
And I’m thinking how much, and how little else, I know.
Canvas 515 — January 19, 2015
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I love moss — its color, its texture, its immediate response to fog or the slightest hint of rain, and how it thrives on thoughtful compression and familiar touch, growing thick beneath footsteps on sidewalks, in lawns, and on forest paths. In some ways it is almost human. Or maybe we are almost moss. This time of year, the retaining walls, the stone steps, and the wooden borders of the […]
By and through the medium and miracle of words, some of us have come so far in imagining each other that I think one of our greatest gifts and advantages is the very unlikelihood we will ever meet in the flesh. This is much less an antisocial view than a matter of looking upon our relationships as we do a changing sky full of painted clouds, or flowers breaking into […]
When I see ignorance in a face, or anxiety, or arrogance, or fear,
I see the road that brought me here.
When I see compassion, grace, and love,
I see sweet rain on distant fields. I see where I was born.
When I see my fingers on the keys of this strange machine,
I see an entire species on the precipice of itself.
Canvas 1,132 — January 12, 2018
Less a Tightrope Walker
Less a tightrope walker or juggler, more a snowflake or butterfly.
And then, when you least expect it, a man, in a grave, at the end.
That’s when his bones dance without help from his skin.
Don’t think it sad. Be a friend. Look in.
And don’t think me mad, if that’s what I am.
Think me flower, or ball, or pin.
Think me weightless.
Or melting.
Yes. Think of me then.
Recently Banned Literature, January 12, 2017
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We had been away from the falls for several weeks. But when we returned to find them recharged by the rain, it was like a meeting of old friends, the kind of gathering one sees in the brick coffeehouses downtown, where tables are pushed together and chairs have coats draped over them like the ferns and moss that cling to the bare maples and line the canyon walls. Mist everywhere. […]
Book by book I go, dusting, cleaning, reading, examining, inhaling, arranging. A library is a strange, quiet joy. It is good fortune, and in these times, when ignorance is vaunted, heralded, and prized, it is a reminder that wisdom and sanity are still alive in the world. And then when the rain stops, I put on even older clothes and go out and prune the fig tree, which, over the […]
William Michaelian 