Sometimes, when the bow is not taut, the arrow flies much farther. The Living and the Dead A pair of starlings are feasting on something in the maple tree outside my window. The tree has just begun to bloom. Its larger branches are covered with moss, some of it old, much of it new. The birds have found something to eat in the moss — newly hatched insects, or […]
We are in the gardening time of the year. And we are the garden. And the harvest is near. April 30, 2020 Blue Jeans And In the waking part of my dream, I’m on my knees in old blue jeans, planting flowers. In the sleeping part, I crumble sweet-aromatic soil in my hand, and, like a wise old chocolatier of a man, hold it up to the nose of […]
I’m still reading Vincent’s letters, and will be for quite some time. I continue with Thoreau’s journal, a fourteen-volume project. I’m about fifty pages into William Wetmore Story and His Friends, from Letters, Diaries, and Recollections, by Henry James, published in two volumes in 1904. I’ve begun the Library of America edition of John Muir’s nature writings. And I’ve just finished at Home with Disquiet, a wonderful new collection of […]
The moonlight, and our boat — don’t they make a lovely pair? Their faded paint, and silver hair? O dear one — how long have we — been sitting here? [ 720 ]
Autobiography is the strangest thing. It’s about everything, and nothing, and no one, and everyone, all at the same time. To be of use — is there anything more to ask? March 23, 2020 The Wise Old Man The wise old man noticed he was hungry. Then he remembered he had no food. “Ah, yes,” he said, “there is that.” A very serious-looking man entered his hut. “You owe […]
Each addition to this collection of poems, notes, and drawings has been made with the understanding that it could have been the last. This entry is no different. As far as I can tell, I am here now. I seem to be healthy. I ate a small breakfast and took a walk again this morning, filling my lungs with the fresh chilly air. I took a shower. I see now […]
Just after dark, two women in their fifties, home from work, one out to get her mail, the other stretching her legs on the sidewalk after her drive home — both offer a greeting and a smile — and I feel like a little boy on a merry-go-round, turned by fate’s precious little girls — who kindly do not laugh at me. March 3, 2020 [ 683 ]
A little bit of marble — stout blades of dewy grass — I expect this too — shall pass — to lichen — us. [ 675 ]
I fill my lungs with air — feel something strange
in there — akin to childhood — a winding stair that clouds
of dream obscure — or an azure tree of stars — fruit ripe
and sure — of one — last — reckoning
February 18, 2020
Canvas 355 — white on black, February 3, 2014
[ 671 ]
If my past is a fiction, and my present a dream, my future could be anything. If my past is a dream, and my present its awakening, the future has much to explain — And that much must be little, if it means what it seems. Such is the play. Such is the scene. To write is to be written. To speak is to sing. Where the mind fails, I […]
William Michaelian 