It’s an interesting notion, that if something is rare, it should cost a great deal, and turn a large profit. And it’s just as interesting, that if something is free and readily available, it should be thought of as common, and not rare at all. How different the world would be if supply and demand were guided by love, kindness, compassion, and wisdom. . To one degree or another, we […]
How pleasantly strange, once again, to find myself running through the neighborhood at four in the morning, while no one else is out and about. And on this new day, what is the first thought I remember? How few thoughts. The others, before and after, have drifted into space. Maybe they’ll find a home out there. Maybe that is their home, except out there is also in here — this […]
In terms of gun violence, the city we live in is no different than others scattered across this land. Every time we leave the house, we know we can be shot and killed. It might be during a walk through the neighborhood, or when we’re buying groceries, or visiting a park, or on our way to or from seeing our children and grandchildren. It’s a strange bit of knowledge to […]
What grew in me without my knowing, what crept stealthily into my burgeoning little boy’s identity and went unrecognized for years, was a keen sense of competition. The expectation, need, and desire to be the best was administered in tiny doses without their knowing by family, friends, acquaintances, and teachers. The best reader, the best speller, the best runner, the best at throwing or kicking a ball — the process […]
Whatever the medium or craft — music, language, carpentry, working with the soil — the virtuoso is, first and foremost, a life-long learner — a child in an aging body whose heart and mind are an image in kind of the flowering cosmos. If it were only a matter of skill, the word virtuoso wouldn’t have the meaning it does. The world would be overrun with them. And yet that, […]
So far as it pertains to collecting and preserving what I feel are the best of my old writings and drawings, the time has come — if it has not passed already — to lay this work to rest. As such, I have tried to make Poems, Notes, and Drawings cohesive and readable from beginning to end. In that regard, I think of it as a book; I also see […]
Old friends, old souls — who else would care for these pages? In today’s mail I received a fall shoe catalog. It made me wonder: when was the last time I wore socks or shoes? I wish I had noted the date. A fair guess, though, would be somewhere in the neighborhood of four months. In that time my feet, ankles, and legs have gained a tremendous amount of strength. […]
Imagine living in a society that values business and entertainment more than it does the health, safety, education, and welfare of all of its members. Imagine living in a society that despoils the environment in favor of comfort and monetary gain, while shunning the sciences, the humanities, and the arts. Imagine a society that glorifies violence and war, and regards people of different backgrounds and customs as evil or unclean. […]
There’s a circle around the waning moon, the smallest I’ve ever seen. And isn’t it interesting that upon reading the word circle, one immediately assumes and understands perfection? For a circle that isn’t perfect, isn’t a circle. We might say that something is round, but that word admits the possibility that what we’re referring to might be approximately round, as in the round river stones, which we know are not […]
William Michaelian 