I’ve lived a fair span; it would be greedy to depend on more; yet it isn’t good grace to count the years, or close the door. . Read the forty-third, forty-fourth, and forty-fifth chapters of Middlemarch. Read The Rambler, Numb. 9. Tuesday, April 17, 1750. Chuse what you are; no other state prefer. — Elphinston The philosopher may very justly be delighted with the extent of his views, and the […]
Yesterday we saw a solitary hiker with thin, long, gray hair, leaning with his right palm against the trunk of a mossy old maple, and the maple pushing back, ever so gently, to the quiet music of the stream below. Now, you and I both know, how he was and wasn’t there, and how he is and always will be; that if by gracious chance we pass that way again, […]
Up and down, over rocks, our feet are covered with dust. Here’s a raven. A flower. Moss. Miles we walk. Down to the stream, out to the middle on high, dry stone. Pools, mirrors, circles, nothing square, no edges. To wash our feet here is to bathe them in infinite space. At home, we carry water to the blueberry and mint. Infinite grace. . [ 1803 ]
Flowers and bees. Computers and clocks. Hmmmm . . . . [ 1797 ]
Each time they met, they bowed to one another and uttered not a word. They were old by then. When one of them died, they went on bowing just the same. And somehow when the other died, their bowing remained. Cane in hand, I thought, I’ve known men who were just like trees. . [ 1794 ]
I try to live simply, without wasted thought, movement, or breath — not as a matter of laziness, but of calm, peaceful efficiency. Whatever it is, I know that if I can’t do it slowly and gracefully, I’ll never be able to do it quickly and effectively. Similarly, if I can’t say something softly, I’d be a fool to shout it from a mountaintop. I also try to write this […]
Object and form, with thanks to space for giving them place and grace, and all we can’t, or don’t, discern. . [ 1650 ]
Gravity keeps us in place, space frees us by grace. . [ 1627 ]
Hot days and warm nights. But it’s all relative. We used to call these temperatures cool in the San Joaquin Valley. Still, one hundred is one hundred, and seventy is seventy — just as my name is what’s stated on my birth certificate, and on all of my other “important papers,” the electronic ones included. In other words, it is, and it isn’t. Or, to frame it as a question: […]
William Michaelian 