Health, leisure, good fortune, and very modest means. Blueberries, and other transitory things. No desire to possess or own. Catkins and birch-bits. Sunflowers. Bees. Cucumbers. The spider in my hair, taken back outside. Aware — yes, aware — there are troubles in the world. Hunger. Suffering. Violence. Greed. Pain. Wildfire. Drought. Climate change. The poses we assume. The lies we tell. The games we play. Aware — yes, aware — […]
Imagine a race of beings so in love with themselves, so jaded, so steeped in their bitterness, that they choose daily to revel in their own righteous filth. Impossible, of course. Yellowed cottonwood leaves on the trail. The trees shudder to think. Gray skies all day without a hint of blue, the smoke pushed east again for a time. Broken green husks of walnuts on the steps. Squirrels, or birds? […]
Imagine a future museum that preserves the furniture of today — the overstuffed chairs, the massive sofas, the acre-wide, bottomless, bloated beds — and its lean and agile visitors looking on wide-eyed, shaking their heads. Why did they torture themselves? How did they live that way? High in the mountain wilderness, John Muir would use the scented branches of conifers to make a bed for the night. The crystal waters […]
As rapidly as the cedar is growing, it will be necessary before long to walk under it instead of around. We are already walking under the pine at the opposite end of the house. It too is young. Little by little, the trees are creating their own climates and conditions. For instance, the pine is already able to slow the progress of passing clouds, while the tips of the cedar […]
I rarely think of things as being themselves alone — a year a year, a man a man, a word a word, a poem a poem — a love a love, a moan a moan. Of All the Blues Of all the blues that grace this world, I love gray the best — dream-blue, rain-blue, a lake blue by gray-night coming to dawn, eye-blue, flight-blue, name-blue graying gray alone […]
William Michaelian 