It’s cold here, with an inch of snow and ice on the ground. Later today, an ice storm is expected, after which a warming rain should set in, freeing up the roads. Through it all, we marvel at the birds, the tiny ones especially, the hearty juncos; and then there are the romping squirrels, whose instinct for play hasn’t abated a whit. I was prompted to write this morning by […]
Everyone is clever. Everyone’s in sales. Oh, how the wind blows — then the light fails, And reason pales to dark walls, Night calls, wood, nails. . [ 1655 ]
The mind an unlit candle — no wonder there’s darkness in the world. . [ 1579 ]
Today is the birthday of my father’s little sister, Marian. It is also the anniversary of my grandfather’s death in 1990 and the day the ancient orthodox Armenian Church observes Christmas — except in Jerusalem, where the Brotherhood at the Monastery of St. James follows an older calendar and Christmas falls on a later date. In the dimly lit, incense-laden sanctuary of St. James itself, there is a nook where […]
Power is restored — electricity has blown out the neighbor’s sweet wax candles. February 22, 2021 . Light Cannot Pass Light cannot pass between two hands clasped in prayer but it does wash over them and it runs down the arms and it drips from the elbows and it melts like wax on the floor. Songs and Letters, May 18, 2008 . [ 1029 ]
Lunch. I’d just fallen asleep on the floor in the back room when I heard a strange noise — the sound of a hanger, perhaps, falling for no reason from the wooden rod in the closet and banging against a bracket on the way down, or of a penny committing suicide by throwing itself into an old cider jar half full of its tragically expired brethren. Awake for the nonce, […]
William Michaelian 