To awaken, as Thoreau once did from a dream, to find oneself a musical instrument, with the last notes dying away. To say, I was borne this day unto death’s divine music, and then pass in a canoe over the brink of a waterfall, only to find, upon landing, that the canoe has become a cabin in the woods and the waterfall a gentle rain on the roof. And now […]
If this is the letter O,
I can only wonder about the rest of the alphabet,
and what brings on these spells.
The Letter O — August 26, 2019
In a Vast White Space
A little boy, with a little apple and sticky hands,
busy the spirits about him, busy the wind,
many the voices, solemn, joyous,
in a vast white space,
written in plain white words,
a white ball chased by a wide white hound,
an alphabet of snow,
and you, with your funny little arrows,
ink-tipped, turned upon yourself,
in a vast white space, an apple,
turning red.
Recently Banned Literature, June 2, 2014
(written on the nineteenth anniversary of my father’s death)
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If my age is equivalent to the number of times the earth has traveled around the sun since I was born, how old would I be if I lived on another planet, or in another galaxy, or in another universe altogether? And isn’t this what I already do? The degree to which I resist things as they are — that might be a more accurate rendering of my age. The […]
We will leave early this morning for another long walk at Silver Falls. But the countryside we will drive through to get there is every bit as beautiful in its own way, and as worth walking, except that the walking would have to be done on roads. And so, that we may see one beautiful place, roads take us through other beautiful places, while keeping us apart from them. And […]
My father always said that no one taught him to swim, that he simply jumped into the wide mossy ditch with all the other boys and learned then and there on his own. He did not say he had already learned by watching, while dancing naked with glee on the bank in the hot summer sun. Some of the same vineyards that were there in his childhood were there in […]
To me, one strange thing about living is having a name. Another is so many not thinking it strange. First Came the Meanings First came the meanings then their names chamomile squirrel supper table the boy himself a pebble down a well loving the hand that let him go Recently Banned Literature, May 10, 2013 [ 416 ]
Once, during my childhood, I caused the death of a bird. Or I was caused to cause it, to drive a lesson home — That fallen from a tree, a sparrow is a rainbow on the ground. Sunlight Stored In Bone Sunlight stored in bone — life, limb, bird, song, leaf, gone, flown. Recently Banned Literature, December 2, 2014 [ 403 ]
During my San Joaquin Valley childhood, there were still a few boxcars used as homes, tucked away in odd corners on useless bits of land. Nestled in mounds of chickweed, with old blown tires and chickens in the yard, they seemed like seeds scattered by a giant’s hand, or fruit fallen from a tree in a homegrown fairy tale. Life inside could not have been comfortable, too cold in winter, […]
I have not been myself lately, said the wind. Nor I, said the mountain. The shepherd boy, who had been listening, took up his flute. When he was an old man, he put it down again and died. And the wind rushed, and the mountain blushed, to the depths of the canyon. Nothing I said to my mother, I said to my father, “I have nothing to do.” To […]
You made the sky purple,
the boy drawing with me in second grade said.
But which boy? And what was his name?
Canvas, 1,231 — March 4, 2019
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William Michaelian 