The Big Dipper is kind to streetlights — lets them boast, as a ghost might. . Now, you should know there’s a great being, gentle, wise, and invisible, who goes out at night and pulls up the roads, and carries them off in her arms, and who leaves trees, grass, and flowers growing in her path — To remind them, she says, and the breeze agrees, Yes. . Read the […]
Writing is one more way of living forever, like digging in the garden, making bread, and bathing a child. It’s a city lot, but if I walk the same narrow path through the yard to its every corner each and every day, my footsteps will form a scenic nature trail. Out, back, and around, in every direction and through all the seasons — who knows what I might see? We […]
Late strawberries — almost ripe — the squirrels get them before we do. A cloudy morning, no dew: raked and mowed the front and back grassy areas. Birch leaves. Fir cones. Pine needles. Mushrooms. Took a walk through the neighborhood, reversing the direction of this morning’s run. This time, down the hill. Saw a man swabbing some kind of sealant on the sidewalk and driveway he had replaced two or […]
If summer is a dry-grass smell and fall is smoke, winter is a clear-glass bell and spring is a rhyme alive in your throat. . [ 1790 ]
Sky is my window, earth is my door. Come and be with me, come and be poor. Grass is my pillow, breeze is my song. Sit here beside me, until you move on. Sky is my window, earth is my door. Come and be with me, come and be poor. If you can love me, I’ll love you the more. And if you can love me, I’ll love you the […]
To witness a miracle, spend a day, a few hours, or even a few minutes listening to your body. Be still. Don’t sit in judgment. There’s no need for words. Notice where it hurts. Notice where it doesn’t. Notice your heartbeat, and the rise and fall of your breath. Notice your digestion. And along with this noticing, notice too how everything is happening of its own accord. The body is […]
Thirty-seven degrees. There was snow yesterday evening in hilly areas a few miles south, and hail here. Maybe this is why the robins haven’t returned to their unfinished nest in the rhododendron. A few smaller birds, though, have stopped to investigate. Otherwise, the weather continues to be rainy with cool daytime temperatures and brief intervals of sun. Our garden space is still muddy, and the soil hasn’t warmed enough to […]
Water is rushing over the road again, coursing through an old channel of the river that’s cleansing Goose Lake from top to bottom, and carrying debris from Mission Lake into the Willamette. Muddy in places, the path through the area is in generally good condition. Dandelions and daisies are abundant, and line the roadsides leading into the park. The immense black walnut is beginning to bud. There are enough daisies […]
It’s time to cut the grass away from the dandelions so the flowers will have more space to breathe and grow. I want them to spread. I want to be a dandelion man, and to bloom like them, a bright, sunny yellow, and for this place where I live to be a bee sanctuary, with more flowers than anyone can dream or count, and a little sign by the street […]
Now, with so much joy in one dandelion, imagine the collective power of every blade of grass, every tree, every drop of rain, and the sky full of stars. Then imagine the joy in thee and me. To say it another way, the only thing that can come between ourselves and the universe, and everything near and beyond, is the hardened assumption that we are superior or inferior, right or […]
William Michaelian 