Where Dragonflies Sleep starts my memory in so many agreeable directions, it would take hours to account for them all, if I ever came to the end. This brings to mind a question: is my memory infinite? Is it even possible to know? And what of ancestral memory, cultural memory, bodily memory, and the collective memory of our kind? And isn’t instinct a form of memory which, having existed for […]
Easy, comfortable, perhaps even comforting — there’s nothing provocative or challenging here, no trauma or turmoil, only the familiar voice of someone remembering, imagining, reliving episodes from his childhood and beyond. Writing for writing’s sake. Writing to find out what might surface that day, as one day follows another, and the nights with their twitches and dreams, while a vast amount remains out of reach — or seems to, because […]
Though the canvas arrived five years after the poem, it was immediately obvious, to me, at least, that the two belong together. The message of both, if there is one, seems to be the same: be attentive; each day is a glory of its own. Survive. Live on. And if they bear no message, which is certainly possible, they still share the characteristics of weathered, well-lived poems. ~ [ 2016 […]
This thoughtful little canvas hangs on the wall near our old oak dining table. It’s been there for years, and I still study it often, half-expecting a change in expression. Someday, if it isn’t discarded, or ruined by water or fire, it will belong to someone — valued, perhaps, or politely kept in a drawer. In that way, its story might be seen as similar to our own. And so […]
Today’s a good day to do very little, and to do it so slowly and thoroughly that it’s impossible for it all to be done; and to do it in a manner not of who and what, but of an absorbed, fully engaged child. Attention isn’t a spotlight, a narrowly focused beam, but a way of life, a state of being. I may focus on an ant, and indeed I […]
Upon returning from her early-morning walk, she said, “A raccoon, as big as a small bear.” . Rushing water, fluid sand, where the stream meets the sea. For an instant, there are two of me. But to keep my balance as I cross, I must mind my feet. . Potted the coleus cuttings. . Read chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine of Middlemarch. . . . It is an uneasy lot at […]
How pleasantly strange, once again, to find myself running through the neighborhood at four in the morning, while no one else is out and about. And on this new day, what is the first thought I remember? How few thoughts. The others, before and after, have drifted into space. Maybe they’ll find a home out there. Maybe that is their home, except out there is also in here — this […]
Silence isn’t “one of those things.” It’s always present, and it never ends. What ends is our attention. Fortunately, silence is always there when we return. I wouldn’t say it’s waiting, but, then again, who knows, it might be. We can say all sorts of things about silence. We can say it pours like honey, Or that it melts like chocolate. We might liken it to the depths of the […]
Remember, everyone you meet is living the precious gift of their lives. So don’t be hasty. Don’t criticize. Be patient. Be considerate. Be kind. Realize, each is you in disguise, Honey sweet, honey sour, Honey wise. . [ 1766 ]
A little bird, watching from a fence post — some miracles I remember; most, I forget. . [ 1740 ]
William Michaelian 