If it’s important to remember our childhood darkness, trauma, or pain, then it’s even more important to remember our joy, because joy is our natural state, the original spirit and foundation of our very existence. If we cling to our pain, that pain becomes our identity. If our pain seems a greater, more powerful force than joy, then we need to work harder at remembering our own joy, however small […]
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 ]
running through the windy dark in icy rain the leafy streets the streetlights’ shine come inside dry the feet the legs the hair and find a strange sight in the mirror . [ 1608 ]
The mind an unlit candle — no wonder there’s darkness in the world. . [ 1579 ]
When I turned on the front step light at 4:30 this morning, the skunk seemed only mildly surprised. It wasn’t on the step, just a few feet beyond. It sniffed the air and peered at me through its thick glasses, then moved off into the darkness, toward the pine. Careful alert regard, mutual curiosity — I’ve known friendships to begin this way. Another way is the wondrous miracle of instant […]
The morning began with a robin leading the way, From birch, to maple, to fig, invisible to me, singing, My favorite tree! My favorite tree! My favorite tree! Or so it seemed as I ran in the calm and misty dark, So it seemed, so it seemed, so it seemed, Each of us a playful happening, Like every leaf and star. . [ 1450 ]
Say it like this robin, singing in the dark — there is no tomorrow. . [ 1396 ]
Shorts, a T-shirt, and another run through the dark in the rain. Fifty-two degrees, a joy to move and breathe. And then there’s the news: the neighbor’s overflowing gutter, a streetlight out, a car with a for-sale sign, the sound of distant geese. Wet arms, wet face, wet hair, wet feet. Nations come and nations go. Rally ’round the flag — a mother’s grief, her bloody sheets, her once-bright tablecloth. […]
On the tracks to the east, a train’s heading north. A long train. North through the fog, beneath a full moon. The moon that kept us up most of the night. Light in the room. Light between the closed blinds. But it’s the silence up there that I wonder about. I can’t help thinking how strong the moon must be. Is that why it’s round? To keep it from being […]
William Michaelian 