It should be clear by these pages that I lead a very simple, quiet life. For what do I write about, really, other than this little place I occupy, and the steps I take daily to traverse it? And yet, this little place is part of a much bigger place, and the bigger place is part of limitless space. And limitless space — who knows that it might not be […]
Why did the robin take a vigorous bath yesterday, on a thirty-five-degree winter afternoon? Did he do it to spite the incoming snow? And where is he now? Near the ice-rimmed pool, watching the white-bright world from under the rhododendron, warm to his red in its bed of dry leaves? At two this morning, I was awakened by snow-light. Out walking before seven, I saw a boy in front of […]
We experience the falling away of friends — not those claimed by death, but by circumstances, of those suffering disappointment in themselves or in us, or both, or some form of private, quietly held anxiety or embarrassment, or of those who have succumbed to weariness, habit, or boredom. Some we have known in the flesh, others through correspondence. And it seems all, whom we thought we understood so well, we […]
A distinct sense, while walking early in the morning through air that speaks of approaching snow, that each breath is greeting and farewell, and that each step is less a passing by, and more a passing through — that all I feel and see is a kindly breeze to please old bones, but never clings to flesh on which they’re hung — a present hum, a distant moan, a first […]
After visiting the massive black walnut tree in the park by the river, we continued half a mile along the trail to murky and muddy Goose Lake, which is swollen now, to the point that we didn’t need to go see it, it came to see us. Despite its name, we have yet to see a goose there. But there were a great many ducks, gliding across the surface and […]
I love the droughts in writing, the minutes that seem like hours, the deserts and barren fields, the dust bowls, the great depressions, the jalopies abandoned by the road like these hobo wayward notes. I love raindrops that take years to fall and then land acres apart, if they land at all. I love the peace of a dry well, the coyote’s howl, free for the taking. Dream The […]
These entries, however poetic, abstract, direct, or imaginal they may be, also reflect my understanding of the science of the day. And that understanding, as extensive as it is, is really quite limited. It’s also full of comfortable assumptions, gaps, fictions, and inaccuracies. It is imaginal, abstract, direct, and poetic, like the interwoven fibers of a beloved old coat. Many years ago, my parents gave me a simple but beautiful […]
There’s an abiding sense that this work will occupy me for the rest of my life, and I can’t help but smile at the meaningful, meaningless, childish pleasure it brings. But there’s no urgency in knowing the process can be interrupted or ended at any moment. What could be more beautiful and natural than a man struck down mid-sentence in a state of dream and delight, or realizing his life […]
With November upon us, I thought I would point to November 2016: Poems and Passages, an entry I posted in Essays and Collections not long after launching this website. It was hardly noticed at the time, and I think that the few who did see it were probably put off by its overall length. But the individual entries it contains are quite brief, with the exception of one or two […]
A long, dry fall. Almost November, and we still have dahlias. Cool, smoky, misty mornings. Spiders asleep in their chosen colors. The other hand clapping. Want less, want not, want nothing at all. Dahlias Sunday evening after the flower show I dream of two dead uncles. Penny Thoughts and Photographs, September 1, 2009 [ 166 ]
William Michaelian 