William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Flight’

The Last Word

If, in the end, what we have written or told is only a story, That, too, is well, because it is the very same thing that life has done. And even given our last word, the story goes on. See us in the Index, under Ocean, Under Flight, under Stone. . [ 1294 ]

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Dream Birds

Early this morning, near the end of sleep, I came upon a tiny yellow bird. He was bright, cheerful, and no bigger than a thimble, a plump fellow resting on a rocky ledge. He was not afraid. A few inches away was another bird I might describe as his shadow, the same size and every bit as friendly and alive, dressed in soft reddish-brown colors. For a time after I […]

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Halls Within Halls

Tongue-tied twice by strange dreams, the details of which I scarcely remember, the second ending with my awkward, labored flight about twenty feet above a sidewalk past snowy steps leading to the door of a three-story brick building while in search of the other entrance — the place was familiar: it contained halls within halls within halls — I knew that much, but nothing more, the structure yet to make […]

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Joy

Walking in the direction of low racing clouds lit by the city, I keep pace long enough to take flight — too weightless to be wrong, too dizzy to be right. February 5, 2021 . [ 1011 ]

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Morning Sounds

Ah, sweet pain! To let go of thee, or me? That is the question. . Morning Sounds Creak in the ceiling sound at the door bird on the rooftop crying for more light rain flight pain creak in the ceiling sound at the door man on the rooftop crying for more flight rain light pain Recently Banned Literature, April 10, 2014 . [ 901 ]

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Morning Exercise

Morning Exercise — July 7, 2020

This drawing reminds me of something that happened a few days ago. While I was watering the flowers in one of our wine barrels, two tiger swallowtails fluttered past me from behind, just above my left shoulder. I fluttered after them. Up over the fig tree we went, past the birch, and into the neighbor’s yard. We were halfway down the street when I remembered I couldn’t fly. I turned […]

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Proverb for a New World

The child mind and the adult mind. And the adult is the child. And the child laughs, and the child cries.   Proverb for a New World If the birds don’t sing, will the sun still rise?               It will, if it’s wise. Awake, little ones! Hear the sun sing! See the birds fly! [ 775 ]

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The Living and the Dead

Sometimes, when the bow is not taut, the arrow flies much farther.   The Living and the Dead A pair of starlings are feasting on something in the maple tree outside my window. The tree has just begun to bloom. Its larger branches are covered with moss, some of it old, much of it new. The birds have found something to eat in the moss — newly hatched insects, or […]

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