I finished pruning the fig tree. I don’t know how long it took, but I guess it to be around four hours, which includes cutting the brush into little pieces for the recycling bin. I did the work in three afternoon sessions. During the last session, I heard the sound of a mourning dove in flight, and looked up in time to see it winging its way north. A second […]
Back to the falls. The sun was shining in the hills above the fog. The maples in the canyon are glowing yellow. The trees still have most of their leaves, and are releasing them one by one like butterflies. Few hikers were out, most of them in their sixties and seventies. On the path below North Falls, one man we met looked at my beard and said with a smile, […]
Mist, fog, smoke — a lonely street light where the town ends and the country begins, dreaming of an affair with the moon — foolish enough — then you smile, so little you’ve changed since your youth. . [ 1577 ]
Dry pavement. Thirty-four degrees. Stars, clouds, fog. I was passed by a young runner this morning whose footsteps were so loud they started a dog barking. He was on the sidewalk, I was in the middle of the road. Someday, if the young runner is lucky, he will be an old runner. If he’s even luckier, he’ll be a running elder, prized for his wisdom in all the villages around. […]
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 […]
Counting the one we live in, between here and the stop sign there are seven houses. I just ran to the stop sign and back three times. That makes forty-two houses. It’s foggy this morning and fairly chilly out, just above freezing. Nice and dark. No wind. Dawn just a thought, not yet a glow. Maybe a promise. We shall see. I refuse to take it for granted. Forty-two houses. […]
Our recent walk through the fog near Goose Lake seems like something that happened ages ago — a lifetime, maybe more. I study the calendar: is it something I really know how to read? Upon our arrival, we met a man and a dog who had just finished their walk. Standing beside the open door of his small yellow pickup, the man was gently blotting moisture from the dog’s head. […]
Goose Lake. A dense fog, the cottonwoods dripping, the oaks, the cherries, the brambles, the berries. For the first time in a year we are able to walk to the water’s edge. This end of the lake is very shallow and full of decaying lilies, between which can be seen the mossy bottom just inches below. Quiet. Few birds are out, and none are chattering or calling from the immediate […]
And what of the salamander we met on the trail, skin smooth, mud-colored, orange beneath, walking on its toes, crossing in the chilly damp? And what of the woodpecker knocking unseen from above? What of the massive cleft rock in the stream? Are we to think nothing of them and pretend their existence away? Or shall we carry them with us, and make ourselves living reminders that all is not […]
Four miles of dusty trails, with side trips down to what is now a very low-running stream. No clouds, no fog, no mist, no smoke. Far off, on the other side of the canyon, the great echoing voice of a raven. The talk now is of rain, and the patience of ferns. Bare feet. Thirty-nine degrees. Even in drought, we outlive our own death. September 16, 2021 . [ 1229 […]
William Michaelian 