Note: To operate the camera, cradle your life in such a way, standing above it, and in it, looking down, through it, and all around, from childhood to dawn, then press the button that takes the picture — and be sure not to frown, when you realize you forgot the film. . Thoreau’s journal, entries for March 2 and March 4, 1854. The First Bluebird. Golden Senecio Leaves. The Melting […]
Of the many wonderful things written and said by Carl Sandburg, there is one that often springs to mind which never goes out of fashion: Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. Starlings are sunshine birds. They know how the light plays on their feathers. A layer of snow and ice: first at the feeder this morning were the juncos. A walk before sunrise, every step accompanied by a […]
The paint is peeling on a two-story house I walk by every day. The window frames are in rough condition, and many of the slats in their decorative shutters are missing or have settled at odd angles. The double door in front is scarred and worn. The man who lives there is in the same condition. We’ve met a few times as I was passing and he was rolling out […]
Immersed as I have been in the humble, candid, beautifully written memoirs and letters of the great Civil War generals Grant and Sherman, it would be odd indeed if this old poem of mine did not come to mind. And then there is the biographical, historical masterwork by Carl Sandburg, the six-volume Abraham Lincoln, given us in two parts: the two-volume Prairie Years, and the four-volume War Years. Sandburg, born […]
William Michaelian 