Someday, when you’re a dragonfly standing on air, And your transparent blue wings are all that you wear, I’ll be a gravestone with a waterfall near; Now sleep on, child, sleep without fear, Sleep, my love, my sweet, My dear. Recently Banned Literature, January 10, 2018 . [ 1147 ]
Five in the morning. Seventy degrees. A light dew. Is there a way to separate memory from smell? It seems one is dry grass, and the other is ripening fruit. Shall we ask the toes? Is there anything they do not know? Early morning watering. The humans are expecting temperatures today as high as one hundred seven degrees. The plants, though, show no sign of concern. Which should we believe? […]
Adults, intent on fences, wishing their backyards were bigger. Children, on swings and trampolines, as light and free as birds. May 16, 2021 . All of Us I climb the corner pine, my cousin ahead on the branch above. It’s our birthday month. Higher and higher. Needles and bark. When we come down, we’re sixty-five. Some say age. I say luck. We run a race. We hide. We throw clods. […]
Tiny blue flowers, dressed to forget what you were about to say (but never the first to look away) “Tiny Blue Flowers” Recently Banned Literature, May 28, 2015 . Up Through the Boot Up through the boot the grass finds its way Up on the knoll past the root of the tree Up to the shin and up to the knee sure as I lie here, waiting for thee And […]
whiter this year cherry blossoms in my beard Recently Banned Literature, March 22, 2017 . [ 1053 ]
Snow on the lilac — my mother has already forgotten that day. Poems, Slightly Used, April 27, 2008 . [ 1050 ]
old shovel from the farm / still loves / to look / for worms March 14, 2021 . [ 1048 ]
The reading ebbs and flows. Lately it has slowed to a crawl. Or maybe it goes on by itself while the reader is otherwise occupied — except that the reader often is not occupied at all. In fact, the reader’s presence should not be assumed, although his body may be, for it serves as a kind of bookmark in the story that is the reader’s life. A great many stories […]
Even at the time, I felt I was living in a dream. My mother was eighty-three, and well on her way to being consumed by Alzheimer’s Disease. Our youngest son and child was eighteen, and beginning his self-guided exploration of music. In the middle of the night, it was common to hear him playing his guitar and singing. Tired as I was, I never once wished he would stop; indeed, […]
What happens when you add fifteen years to memories that were forty years old when you first wrote them down? The answer, expressed mathematically, is this: 40 + 15 = surprise x gratitude. . The End of the Rainbow When I was in the fourth grade, our teacher gave us a short reading assignment about a porpoise. Since I had never heard of the animal or seen the word porpoise […]
William Michaelian 