I’m not only a floor-sweeper, I’m a floor-sleeper. And I’ve never swept, or slept, better. I sweep my dreams, those I can remember, and I sleep my broom. We both are kind to dustpans. Over the years, I’ve found all mattresses to be back-breakers. Finally, it dawned on me that humans aren’t really meant to sleep that way. Now I can stretch out anywhere, on any firm surface, drift off […]
When he asked his grandmother why she was dancing with her broom, she smiled and said, “You might as well ask me why I love.” . [ 1793 ]
A new day breaking into bloom. Dust in my room. Waltz with my broom. . [ 1762 ]
I sweep the rug in the entry with the whisk broom our family used during my childhood. Every once in a while, bristles come out — museum pieces — like these, from my memory. . [ 1637 ]
Sweeping the walk . . . with all, of our ancestors, and children, to be born. . [ 1623 ]
Every bristle in every broom, every step on every stone, Every smile and every groan, every solace and every loss, Every full and empty palm, every laugh and every dance, Every note of every song — one joy, one peace, one love. . [ 1400 ]
Up at three-thirty, for no particular reason, other than, like an oft-reheated meal, the sleeper was done, and then some. But the night joys are great ones, with dawn coming on. Dawn, the grand assumption. It is a cricket-morning, the first of the late-summer, early-fall season. Crickets cast no votes. They do not need mail boxes or polling places. They have no gerrymandered districts. They have rhythm and purpose. They […]
I know someone who has a beautiful garden, with a barn, a path, many squirrels, and a broom. In the garden, she moves rocks around. And the rocks respond: they summon light and shade, night, rain, snow; and they hold each beyond the winking lives of them. I do the same with small smooth river stones. Today, near our jade plants, at the east end of the flowerbed by the […]
Sunday evening and the house is calm, the voices have returned to the street and their bodies have followed them, their bodies have gone to the stars, gone to the moss on the sidewalks and cushioned retaining walls, to the dogwood leaves on the ground and the soft velvet cedar, padding on dark wild feet with sharp nails exposed to the frost, where the owl shakes down a wealth of […]
After years of beating the pavement with a long-handled stub, I finally have a new broom. It’s a big rugged thing, with bristles enough to thatch a cottage. Best of all, it’s well balanced, like a good guitar or violin — or like a good mind, that knows where it’s been, and loves where it is. Sweeping I am here, in this part of the world. You are there, […]
William Michaelian 