Picking up a few wind-downed birch and fir branches, I found out just how soggy the backyard is. Each step was accompanied by a luscious squish — two words you don’t see together very often — the result of the frequent rains we’ve been having. This didn’t stop me, though, from making a fair beginning of the annual pruning of our fig tree, which is a fair-sized job requiring the […]
How lovely. My first thought is, What Others See is ripe for illustration. My second is, how wonderful it would be if I could somehow see what you imagine as you read this fairy tale of a poem. That would be magical indeed. ~ [ 2010 ]
When they came from outer space, the first thing they did was put the humans on reservations. May these scratches be worthwhile, even if you don’t have fleas. . [ 1546 ]
The star was a bright one. But when I got there, All I found was an old man warming his hands by a fire. It took my whole life, he said, and all of my breath, to prove I wasn’t a liar. Ever since then, I’ve felt pity for God, and questioned my own desire. . [ 1538 ]
If you will not buy my flowers, she said, then I will give them to you. And she thrust them into my hand in a way that let me know how poor I had always been, and how suddenly rich I had become. We met often after that, always and never quite by chance — such is the nature of miracles. She was little more than a child. I asked […]
I once read a fairy tale, in which the villain was a terrible monster. Years later, I looked in the mirror. Then I read the fairy tale again. How beautiful, I said. June 3, 2020 When We Most Need Them We all know of ignorant, arrogant, obnoxious, destructive people. But it’s imperative we don’t pollute ourselves with negative thoughts about them — that we say, rather, “This is the […]
The intimacy of the charcoal-green outlines of trees near dawn — grayer at a distance, greener in their fairy tale approach — these sisters and brothers, the dark redwoods and bare oaks, the wise owls of one’s thought. Lights on over breakfast tables. Still wind chimes, wondering which clothes to put on. I shall wear a sparrow. And another, The mist is enough. February 13, 2020 [ 665 ]
I remember from my boyhood a man in the old hometown who had survived a tragic car accident, and whose face was disfigured beyond recognition, having been reconstructed by the doctors into a featureless, expressionless mask. In the barbershop one day, the first time I saw him, I watched from my place high in the third chair as he entered and exchanged friendly greetings with several men waiting who apparently […]
The following little story, which reads like a fairy tale — and would be, if every word of it were not true — is an old favorite of mine. Written in 2002 as part of No Time to Cut My Hair, it subsequently appeared in Ararat Quarterly in 2003; in Armenian translation in The Old Language in 2005; and in The Armenian Reporter in 2008. The accompanying image is from […]
The towhees around our house are quite friendly. Not only do they not avoid me, some seem downright eager for conversation. Within just a few feet, they stop and look at me, then hop about in the ferns and moss and rhododendrons without wariness or alarm. Late in the afternoon two days ago, while I was watering the hostas not far from the birdbath, a male with beautiful markings alternated […]
William Michaelian 