Open, honest, illuminating, inspiring, heartbreaking, profound — I am glad to have read James Baldwin’s masterfully written essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” Yesterday morning, upon rising and after the coffee was on, I drank two large glasses of water. This morning I had less than a glass. Sometimes I have one, sometimes one and a half. Day in and day out, all through my growing up years, my father […]
The world owes me nothing. It gives me everything. I can claim that I have what I have through my own effort, but it simply isn’t so. I have what I have because life is in me and I am in life. I have awareness and breath. I need nothing else. And when they leave this body, they will take that need with them. The sudden arrival of about a […]
Each pause a leaf where a comma once has been. Each leaf a pause and then the wind again. December 5, 2021 . [ 1309 ]
Every breath is a call to the joy of consciousness. If I’m afraid of that consciousness coming to an end, or try to think of ways I can hold onto it forever, the joy immediately slips away. Joy then becomes just one more word in a numbing, distracting intellectual exercise in which I’m both martyr and hero. When that happens, the moment simply goes on without me. It doesn’t matter […]
A poem of so many lines going every which way,it becomes a drawing; A drawing of so few lines its breath gives way,to reveal a poem in hiding; A life thought mine sailing away,free of the binds I was tying. “A Poem, a Drawing, a Life”Recently Banned Literature, November 30, 2014 Canvas 479 November 26, 2014 . [ 1302 ]
A deep breath / and then / the word is a bell / you invite to sound November 2, 2021 . Your Breath, My Hand You begin slowly, speaking softly, saying, One word at a time, gently we go, with love, just as if you are a cushion of fresh green moss on a wall, beyond which bare fields sleep until spring. And then someone happens along and replies: I, […]
Goose Lake. A dense fog, the cottonwoods dripping, the oaks, the cherries, the brambles, the berries. For the first time in a year we are able to walk to the water’s edge. This end of the lake is very shallow and full of decaying lilies, between which can be seen the mossy bottom just inches below. Quiet. Few birds are out, and none are chattering or calling from the immediate […]
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 […]
That little word, a flame — out with your breath. Recently Banned Literature, November 13, 2013 . [ 1238 ]
The level of relaxation I reach stretched out for a rest on my back on the floor is death-like. It might be for only a few minutes, or for half an hour, or occasionally even for an hour, but the sleep that comes to these muscles and bones is deep and profound. Arms at my side, toes to the window, face to the ceiling, I am, for a brief dreamless […]
William Michaelian 