A June poem in December, a December poem in June — blue star creeper blooming in the lawn, the scent so strong, the bees are making notes. I open the mailbox. Love has sent me another shadow. Bell Weather how blue and sweet the stars today how grain to meet the tongue how saint the nurse of this quaint verse how old to be this young Recently Banned Literature, […]
A barefoot journal, written entirely outdoors — why have I never done such a thing? This afternoon, within five minutes of walking out into the warm grass in front of the house, I was renewed and restored. Whatever the time of year, I’m in the habit of going barefoot inside — but it’s not the same. Five hours or five lifetimes — carpet is carpet, tile is tile, vinyl is […]
Love, I remember that day — the gardener was a bee, the flower your hand, and my heart was stung to perceive. [ 681 ]
Thoreau, off on a tramp, writing by moonlight. Whitman, bending a sapling to test his paralyzed strength. Bathing in ponds. Crow-voices. Wild flowers. Bumblebees. The nighttime parade of stars. The names of ferry-boat captains. Snow to the waist. Ice-cakes in the river. Big families. Poetry. Geology. Boot laces. Wild carrots. The end of the war. My hand on the knob. Your knock on the door. [ 606 ]
The sunflowers are still standing. Most of the seeds are gone, and most of the leaves. And yet there is still a small lateral bloom here and there, way up high, as if, in their kindly old age, the plants are still thinking of the bees. The bees themselves are few. Those I have seen seem both busy and confused — busy about the world’s end; busy about the sky, […]
On the road, the notion of time evaporates so quickly, I have to stop and think to know what day it is, and even then I’m not quite sure. A minute, mile, or hour farther on, the fact is gone again, along with its meaning and its need. We left on Monday. That much I know. But I hardly prize the information. If today is Thursday, the name is the […]
Goose Lake is still choked with lilies, but here and there a small patch of water is now visible. The muck slowly recedes, but there’s no shore, no place to put in a canoe, or to cast a line. By all signs, it won’t be that kind of summer. A fallen cottonwood branch lies across the part of the path that leads to the only other place of easy access […]
William Michaelian 