Civilized
We are not all marigolds or roses. Some of us are nettles, some are chickweed, some mint. How quiet the church house, the burial ground! How perfect the hedge! December 13, 2020 . [ 956 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Diaries’
Granite Verse
The winter light, the old books and photographs, pierce me through and through. I move among them with my teacup like a ghost. I do not bleed from my old wounds. They might be kisses, for all I know. Words are like that too. They never say themselves. They do not know how. Yet they rule the world, each a tyger burning bright, each of heaven, each of hell. Shakespeare […]
A Fair Beginning
On my deathbed, deep in the heart of age, I would be blessed to hear a voice say, You have made a fair beginning. And if there were no voice, another sign — wind along the eaves, or hummingbird befriend me. Should I hear it twice, I would not know my name; a third time, maybe — given to a tree outside, or a tiny newborn baby. December 12, 2020. […]
Visitors
The world comes to the tree. Stars, birds, breeze — none can resist. We cross oceans and continents to see the sequoia, the cedar, the bristlecone, just to be in their presence. And some of us are like trees. Some of us understand that the universe is contained in a raindrop. Some of us are in tune with that memory and revelation. Some of us stand in the yard. Some […]
Knowing and Not Knowing
While reading Emerson’s journal this morning, I came to a one-line entry of such a painful, personal nature that even now, almost two hundred years after it was written, I feel I have invaded the poor man’s privacy. Yet I am glad I read it. Had I been the editor, I would have thought long and hard about including it, but I am sure I would have done so — […]
Time
Isn’t it revealing that we say time passes, when it is really we who pass? The heron we saw two mornings ago standing motionless at water’s edge — what need has he of time? What need has anything? What need the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the stars, the moon? Time is a drug we take in frequent small doses. It isn’t required for our health or survival, yet we […]
Counting
Fruit is falling — ripe, soft, hard, green. Humanity is the shaken tree. December 6, 2020 . [ 949 ]
Spirit Ducks
It’s rare anymore that I use the word my — my writing, my poems, my books, my furniture, my house, my friends, my wife, my love, my life, my time. Only when it’s necessary for the sake of clarity and meaning, or to properly assume responsibility, does the word seem justified — as in, This is my perception, or, This is my experience, or, This is my mess. Otherwise, the […]
Echoes
My first paying job away from the farm was picking grapes on the neighbor’s place immediately west of ours. I was twelve. I worked with the neighbor’s double-jointed son, who was the same age. We did that for two seasons. It was hot, dirty, and dangerous. The danger was from two sources: black widow spiders and yellow jackets. One year, in the space of three days, I killed thirty-four black […]
William Wells Brown
The Library of America volume devoted to the writings of William Wells Brown begins with his 1847 Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave. I’ve read twenty-eight of its forty-five pages thus far. And while it has revealed no general detail about slavery that I haven’t already encountered, the simple, stark clarity of Brown’s writing, coupled with his frank honesty in terms of his personal regrets and easily forgiven […]
William Michaelian 