Once upon a time, there was a little mirror. I think I’ll be a lake today, he said, and began to shimmer. A big white cloud floated overhead. What have we here? the cloud said, Looking at her reflection in the bright water, I’ve never seen anything so lovely. And all at once the lake became a mirror again. It made him feel helpless, and, truth be told, a little […]
Fourteen weeks of daily early-morning running: suddenly it sounds ridiculous — about as ridiculous as publishing daily blog entries — as if I really have that much to say, or there’s that much that truly needs to be said, and which might not be better and more fully expressed by silence — or by walking across the street and shaking my neighbor’s hand for no special reason, other than the […]
I finished cleaning the library. Once again, the internet has come to feel like an albatross around the neck of this ancient mariner. The room measures about nineteen feet by twelve feet. The way the shelves are arranged, there are small rooms within the room, little private corners. This laptop also feels like an albatross. You’ve read Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I hope, and seen the accompanying artwork […]
To new themes, and wise ways, the rain says, to glad trees. To dead men, in new graves, the fool says, amid buds, and green leaves. ~ [ 2107 ]
Yes, I love writing without words — but I love your face even more. ~ [ 2106 ]
These days I’m in the process of dusting books and cleaning shelves — it’s spring-cleaning time in the library. Along with it arrives this thought: What if I were to lose all three thousand books in a fire, and what if that same fire destroyed our collection of irreplaceable family photographs and other treasured heirlooms and odds and ends? At one time, the thought that followed would have surprised me. […]
When I say this is all a dream, I mean everything — the entire universe, all of history, everything known and unknown, the rapidly approaching end of life as we know it as it’s absorbed by artificial intelligence — not just the rise and fall of my own brief experience measured out in days and nights, breaths and heartbeats, acts of kindness and thoughtless habits. The flesh falls away, the […]
I’d just gone to bed, and taken a slow deep breath, Whereupon, without a single thought, I, or someone, said, This is all a dream. Another breath — and, with an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude, I closed my eyes, and fell immediately to sleep. And so it is. ~ [ 2103 ]
The river is high. Moss covers the bare maples, upon the bark of which sprouts the new growth of ferns. Near the ferry crossing, perched high in the bright sun atop a dead cottonwood, are two bald eagles. Beside us, a towhee spins a few notes, as if trying to catch our attention, while a crested blue jay calls out, No! Look over here! Everything is right. Perfect. Such is […]
William Michaelian 
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