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 […]
After years of beating the pavement with a long-handled stub, I finally have a new broom. It’s a big rugged thing, with bristles enough to thatch a cottage. Best of all, it’s well balanced, like a good guitar or violin — or like a good mind, that knows where it’s been, and loves where it is. Sweeping I am here, in this part of the world. You are there, […]
The beautiful thing about expecting nothing is that when it arrives, I’m always delighted and surprised. It’s only when I expect something that I’m disappointed. But, as they say, those days are gone. It’s been ages since I expected anything. And if you think this sounds silly, childish, frivolous, clever, or contrived, you should read the rest of this book. Read it page by page from the very beginning. Then […]
Someday, perhaps, the unhappiest and most destructive of our kind will simply be loved by the rest of us into grace — caressed, as it were, by the whole human race. Now, look at the face. Look, and then ask yourself: Am I willing to love? Or am I above such tragic disgrace? And: If I am above, how came I to be so unlike the truth I proclaim — […]
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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In Recently Banned Literature, there was a department I called Definitions. Written about a year and a half apart yet clearly related, “Life, A Funny” and “Hurry” are two brief entries from that odd between-the-ears dictionary I fall back on to make up for Webster’s occasional gaps and misunderstandings, while revealing my own. Life, A Funny Life? A funny kind of bark, on a funny kind of tree, and a […]
For every love, every grief, every pain, an early-morning streetlight — but there is, I am certain, one star to explain. “Early-Morning Streetlight” Recently Banned Literature, December 29, 2014 I Like the Idea I like the idea that there’s an idea. In the bare trees of winter. In the wise-hungry birds. In madness and mittens. Out past the graveyard. Have you seen them? How they roost on the branches […]
At the moment there’s scarcely room here to sit, leave alone exercise free movement of my elbows. And while this is only a slight exaggeration, I’d best make no sudden moves, or I might topple the tall stacks of books everywhere around me, as the room is in a state of turmoil brought on by my decision to add two more tall bookcases, despite the fact that there’s no obvious […]
Another thing I’ve noticed while writing is that when the subject at hand brings something else I’ve written to mind, that something else is far less likely to be a piece from the last two or three years. For whatever reason, my thoughts drift back to older associations, as if the paths that take me there are more familiar and well worn. This could be a sign that my memory […]
Do you ever feel you’re drifting through space, and that the planets are in your tow? You are. It’s true. Space is the silence between thoughts. The planets are your memories and deeds, and the little that you know. In the Mirror a Window In the mirror a window : beyond the window falling snow : in a mirror the snow : falling in the here and now : […]
William Michaelian 