The dream is a memory, the memory a dream. One such had its beginning in perhaps my seventh or eighth year, for it was after my recurring hospital-related dream of shooting marbles with George, though not so long that others had taken on any significance. I say it had its beginning, because it lives on, even now, as I approach my sixty-seventh birthday. I was reminded of it again when […]
The birds are out, the robins in pairs, their colors intense. They are like little day-lanterns that help me see the light. And now it is night, and the wind is high in the meadow. And the wind is why my body is a hut the trees know. Recently Banned Literature, December 19, 2017 . [ 1287 ]
Fifty-eight degrees. Standing shirtless on the grass at dawn under a steady rain, face to the sky, I was surprised at how warm I felt. Twenty minutes later, inside, while finishing my shower with the water turned completely to cold, I was surprised again by how much colder the water was coming from the city well and up through the pipes that run under the house. What, in degrees, is […]
Let us not think of each other as fixed stars, but as lanterns carried up a steep mountainside by an unseen hand, moved by a breath, shaken by the wind. Recently Banned Literature, September 5, 2015 . [ 1156 ]
Yesterday afternoon, the deep wet grass in front of the house was so green it made the sun smile — a wonderful thing, considering what the sun sometimes has to look down upon, even if it is not a person, and is, as many adults believe, just a star. October 18, 2020 . Child With a Lantern in a Dream Now you can see, Mr. Sun, that there is nothing […]
A thunderstorm began yesterday evening at about eight, with faraway rumbles and flashes of lightning to the east, which gradually increased and grew nearer during the night, until about two-thirty this morning, when we were engulfed in a loud and steady display, the house windows pulsing with light. This lasted about an hour, but out of it came little rain. The smokiness persists. And here in the dark, with more […]
Through an open window in the dark, you imagine what you’ve seen before. Then you hear an owl, who-hooting in the firs. Coffee’s ready. Scarce past four. You imagine not a thing before. And the owl concurs. A Few Nasturtiums A few nasturtiums where nothing else will grow. Fir needles. Who can count them all. And the tales they tell of galaxies in dew and dust. A calligrapher’s turn […]
Someone says the bright new mushrooms shine like lanterns by the walk. . . . the moon? In Light Of Twenty-six degrees this morning. I wonder what I would do if I were a star? Shine like the rest of them, I suppose. And perhaps be gone by the time my light is seen in this faraway world. Lantern is a word I love. I wonder how old I […]
William Michaelian 