Bide with your pain, your discomfort, your illness, the way a dog does. Bide with your worry, your problem, your puzzle, your fear, your mood. Lick your paw, scratch behind your ear, then settle down and sit quietly. Whether it is for a moment or for an hour, sit forever, the way a dog does. Later, when it is time to stir, do whatever it is you need to do […]
Shall I spend what remains of my precious time merely agreeing or disagreeing with everyone I meet and with every piece of information that comes my way? Would this not keep me in a state of perpetual opinion, sure I am right, and therefore willfully blind? Or shall I work to remain open, and tremble and sway with life as it passes through me and around me, like the trees? […]
The rising sliver of the waning moon is good company. So is a blank page. I have seen many of the latter dawn and fade over the years, very nearly one each day — fade into print, into scratch, swirl, and scrawl. But if I had to choose between the page and the moon, I would keep the moon and let go of the page. And while it is one […]
From the beginning, one by one, these pages proclaim, We are karma. Before dawn, a sliver moon, the rest of its shadow clearly visible. This morning’s sunflower visitors: chickadees, nuthatches, scrub jays, squirrels — all talkative, reveling in what they have found, telling all the world. Thrice exalted: first by your kind presence; then by my short fast; and finally in answering the call of my hunger. September 5, 2021 […]
To spend a lifetime moving words around, only to find, in the end, that they have moved themselves back again, is one more reason for gratitude. . Last Leaf Wanting Last leaf wanting of a letter that you wrote, and I, a tree, in a dream, unclothed, beside a street, lined with honeycomb. Recently Banned Literature, August 30, 2015 . [ 1193 ]
In terms of imagination, joy, and wonder, I am as much my childhood self as ever. I am a dreamer, and the world passes through me as a dream. That is my reality. There has been an accumulation of facts, of knowledge, yes — but as useful as some of these are, or seem to be, they are only superficial adornments. They are not mine; I lay no claim to […]
and then you feel like a poet come back again,only to be loved this time around — scribbling furiously,toward the second time you are gratefully undone. “Toward the Second Time”Recently Banned Literature, August 17, 2016 Canvas 738 August 17, 2016 . [ 1176 ]
Every day, Nature says, I am willing.And every day, Man, her ungrateful child replies, I am not. (But some of us are! Some of us! And the cry went up.) July 25, 2021 Canvas 296 July 25, 2013 . [ 1175 ]
Everything I eat, everything I wear, everything I use; everything that sustains me and makes my life easier and more comfortable; everything that educates me, everything that stimulates me intellectually and inspires me in the realm of art — these are all proof of how directly my life is related to others, and of how completely I depend on people almost all of whom I will never meet and know. […]
Having been granted this breath, I would be embarrassed to ask for anything more. Without it, there is nothing more. With it, as familiar as it seems, this glorious early morning summer scent is more than I can describe or define. It describes and defines me. It is the cosmic fruit, honey, and grain that sustains. It is the means and the way. Now, if only there is something I […]
William Michaelian 