As If the Time Has Come
My memory’s not what it used to be. There’s more room inside it now, As if the time has come For something new to grow. . [ 1553 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Identity’
Dream Fall
To the bird that let go of me high above a mountain lake, my deepest thanks . [ 1547 ]
Pity and Desire
The star was a bright one. But when I got there, All I found was an old man warming his hands by a fire. It took my whole life, he said, and all of my breath, to prove I wasn’t a liar. Ever since then, I’ve felt pity for God, and questioned my own desire. . [ 1538 ]
The Mask
Warm, cloudy, humid. Fires east, fires south. And here I am, recognizing once again the sheer luxury it is to be able, for so long, to pursue my tiny line of thinking — to read my books, to write my notes and poems and then pretend them to the world — for pretending and publishing are much alike — tho’ the mask I wear is nearly identical to what it’s […]
Cultivation and Preservation
Dark, rich, thick, smooth — a not-quite-full six-ounce cup of pour-over coffee. Dream coffee, slowly consumed. Coffee in the bright light shadow of a setting full moon. The fir tree has a very heavy new crop of green pitch-glistening cones, which, as they mature, are shedding bits of themselves. When I was working under it the pieces fell around me and on me. The garden is engulfed in purslane, which […]
Isn’t Is
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: […]
A Dewy Understanding
A slow run, the last sliver of moon just rising, the streets quiet and calm. With the arrival of the summer heat, our former high temperatures are now the lows, even as the days, little by little, grow shorter, and the cloudless, starry nights, as if by their own magic, add unto themselves. The grass in front of the house has yielded again to clover. The bare feet rejoice in […]
Outside In, Inside Out
The grass behind the house is on the wild side. Shaded most of the day, it stays green if left alone. No mowing, no water. Churchyard grass. Perfect for imagined goats. Pick things up, then set them down again. Sticks, leaves, stones. Rainbows. Poems. The days and nights themselves. A swarm of bushtits in the cedar. Some are upside down. What’s the world to them? Outside in. Inside out. The […]
Time
It takes time to learn carpentry; algebra; to build bridges; plant a vineyard; fly to the moon. But to live simply and joyfully, to be kind, to breathe deeply, love, and be free, time is not needed at all. Peace is not a matter of identity, struggle, or effort; ask any tree or ever-changing cloud. You are here; the date, the hour, need not be recorded; the world need not […]
Canvas 1,258 — Well Met
And the little bird replied, With so many leaders and followers, why would you be either? Canvas 1,258 May 5, 2022 . [ 1454 ]
William Michaelian 