Yesterday morning while I was watching the birds finding things to eat on the frosty ground, I was struck again at how crippled by convenience I am, in the sense that, for much of the year, I am cut off from the activity of getting food. The time spent in direct contact with the earth, the energy used, and the attention and involvement required in an endeavor that yields varying […]
After sipping icy water spiced by moss-crowned leaves, the robin flies from the birdbath to the fence-top for a meeting with the squirrel. When they arrive, they find the sun already waiting at the spot. Welcome to my secret hideaway, says he. I’m surprised you found it. Then the clouds move, and the sun, the robin, and the squirrel disappear. And here we find the poet, not quite ready, in […]
A curious thing, and to me a beautiful thing, is how all of this life, and yet none of it, seems real. For me it’s a vivid, personal fiction, a novel, a poem. The days are a series of pages, full of lines and paragraphs connected by a common thread, and that thread is the familiar idea of myself, which I’ve been creating and imagining from moment to moment since […]
How slowly can I breathe? How deeply? How calm can I be? Somewhat calm? Quite calm? Infinitely calm? How far can I run? And for how long? How patient can I be? How helpful, how considerate, how understanding, how gentle? How little harm can I do? How little disturbance can I make in the world? How present can I be? How aware? How grateful? How devoid of ego? How much […]
Sweet sleep, for we might say sleep is that from which we arise, to emerge at birth and find ourselves astonished by the light; and then, at the appointed time, that to which we return, ripe and ready for the next miracle. Sweet, for how could it not be? — as sweet as the sleep of the child one was, is, and will become — sweet as the dew on […]
Yesterday evening, I thought of a good name for the next phase of writing: Sweet Sleep and Bare Feet. To me it sounds, seems, and feels like it means, or can come to mean, a great deal, very much like the moment one gives, or is given, a flower or smile. In that light, I have restored the social media capabilities that are part of this publishing platform. And now […]
William Michaelian 