I would describe most of my adult life as a great unlearning — a process moving gradually from prior conditioning and habit, through blindness, ignorance, intimation, denial, recognition, acceptance, and gratitude. Is the process done? Have I reached my destination? I don’t worry about it, or think in those terms. I’m simply amazed by my good fortune. I won’t even say that I know what I know. Do I? And […]
When we expect or fear the worst, we increase the chance of it happening, and of making ourselves the instrument that helps bring it about. Observe; go into it carefully; the evidence is all around us. The same can be said of expecting the best. Of course, it’s worth asking if we can always, or even possibly, know what’s worst and best. The most sensible approach is to leave that […]
If whatever I write, or draw, or make, or do, is to be fresh and new, and not simply more of the same, however pleasant and comfortable that same may seem, must I not make sure that I am myself fresh and new? Must I not be my own peaceful revolution, and free of my usual thought pattern, with all its familiar repetition and redundancy? Must I not be willing […]
Let us say, for the moment, that poetry saves lives. Then, let us imagine a world in which only those who can afford to pay for it, are able to go on living. Meanwhile, old people and young, children and in between, are dying everywhere — all for the want of poetry. Some will shrug and say, That is the way of the world. And others will say, It’s only […]
One of the blessings of memory is the opportunity it gives us to go back in our minds and apologize to those we have thoughtlessly made suffer, and promise them such a thing will never happen again. And though at first it may seem contradictory, the blessing is especially great when the person we are addressing has already passed on. When the wrong is acknowledged and the apology and pledge […]
You have been kind. I have been blind. And you have been blind. And I have been kind. Kindness and blindness bind us. Let’s keep that in mind, And find love. . [ 1258 ]
Words are shadows cast by meaning.My intent? Aye, there’s the rub. The sun is understanding:it leaves me blind, strands me in the wood. Recently Banned Literature, December 18, 2012 . [ 1257 ]
The rising sliver of the waning moon is good company. So is a blank page. I have seen many of the latter dawn and fade over the years, very nearly one each day — fade into print, into scratch, swirl, and scrawl. But if I had to choose between the page and the moon, I would keep the moon and let go of the page. And while it is one […]
The United States of Us and Them. The Republic of Either Or. The Union of Right or Wrong. This Side or That. I have lived in each. They called themselves free. But their borders were trash. Their borders were long. So I moved to the land. I moved to the sky. I moved to the sea. I moved to The Burial Ground. . [ 1174 ]
Is it possible to love someone — to love each other, to love anyone — and not also love and care for the earth on which we live? Imagine human history if, each step of the way, we had first said, What of the land? What of the sea? What of the sky? What of the rivers? What of the animals? What of all living things? For all things do […]
William Michaelian 