The long nights, the deep, dark days, the eerie, sublime chill, shadows hidden within shadows, naked limbs, moss in every crevice and seam — if I’m lucky enough to emerge come spring, how can I arrive unchanged? In the street of an early morning, I’m amazed by the relentless human roar, the gasping of brakes, the grinding of gears, the howling of wheels, and I think, What means Sanity if […]
If I seem preoccupied with books, it’s because I am. The fact is, if I never bought another, I still have enough to last me several lifetimes. And among them are a great many that are well worth reading again. So it should come as no surprise, that as winter closes in and my little thrift store lamps come on, I have mostly set my computer aside and dedicated myself […]
The harvest is rich, that we may be the kinder. Read The Rambler, Numb. 1. Tuesday, March 20, 1750, by Samuel Johnson. Received as a Christmas gift from “The Children” in 2015: The Rambler. In Four Volumes. The Tenth Edition. London: Printed for S. Strahan, J. Rivington and Sons, B. Collins, T. Longman, B. Law, C. Dilly, T. Carnan, J. Robson, G. Robinson, T. Lowndes, T. Cadell, W. Cater, H. […]
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 […]
James Baldwin: Collected Essays, in the fifteenth printing of the Library of America edition — a gift for Christmas from “The Kids.” At one-thirty in the morning, the sound of a raccoon climbing the fence near our bedroom window. Into the kitchen for a sip of water, the cold floor a comfort to my warm bare feet. Streetlights and a dusting of snow. December 26, 2021 . Early-Morning Streetlight For […]
“A Christmas Wish” first appeared on my website, I’m Telling You All I Know, in 2003. It has been borrowed and republished online numerous times, in various formats, on scrolls, in frames, or in plain text. It has even been used as a spoken interval in a symphonic musical program. As is inevitable, some versions are complete, others aren’t. In this way, the worldwide web is like a giant refrigerator […]
It really is a walk. Not a race, as many have come to believe. December 18, 2021 . It’s Still a Long Walk to Christmas I’m hidden away from holiday visitors, egg from plates wiped clean, crumbs up from counter brushed with efficient palm, frying pan still warm and slick upon the stove, potato peels filed away, scent of navel orange, morning paper rearranged according to topics best ignored. Outside, […]
I don’t remember the year. But I was quite small. The gift was a word. I’m unwrapping it still. Recently Banned Literature, December 25, 2013 . [ 1270 ]
A great many years ago, my mother accidentally dropped a copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám out of the library window. About thirty years later, I saw it on my brother’s bookshelf. She’d inscribed it to him as a gift! . A Child’s Christmas Whence this peace falling into this upturned palm? . [ 970 ]
After two inches of rain, these lungs are best understood as sails, and this body a creaking, yet willing, ship — the air is that promising, that fresh, that clean. Seagulls on the city streets; the homeless, some just waking, others still asleep. The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn — if these clouds persist, will Christmas still come? History changes with the wind. It is the wake of the […]
William Michaelian 