Standing between the hot, vibrating fender and the seat, there was just room enough for me to ride beside my father on the tractor. At three miles an hour, we went up and down the vineyard rows, transported by the mellow, acoustic hum of the gas engine as dozens of blackbirds crowded behind us to hunt for worms and bugs in the newly turned soil. This, too, was paradise. There […]
Looking back, if I think of each insect and bird, each leaf and handful of soil, each mountaintop and white puffy cloud as an ancient scroll waiting to be read, then my daily childhood surroundings on the farm might be seen as a kind of living, breathing Library of Alexandria. And I had it all at my disposal without a single bit of advertising — no pop-up ads, unless they […]
Who knows why, but this morning I find myself thinking about jackrabbits, vineyards, and dust. These are but a few significant emblems of my childhood, which, rather than ending, gradually became the insanity I labor under today. Polliwogs, crawdads, slow-moving mossy water. The sound of our tractor in the distance, the tractor and my father pursued by a cloud of blackbirds looking for bugs, seeds, and worms. As I look […]
William Michaelian 