The blueberry and apricot are almost bare, their leafy colors beneath them. The grape is a mass of brush I’ve already pruned in my mind. The fig is yellow, with many leaves yet to fall — too late for Adam, too late for Eve. The ground is yellow too. I cut down the dahlias; we’ll be digging and storing them soon. The pine has shed almost all its yellowed needles, […]
When I ran this morning, I wore gloves and a snow cap, yet my bare feet were warm. . I’m aware that I write for a very small audience. I’m also aware that each member of that audience brings something to the writing that it most certainly needs: kindness and wings. . Gutter Journal, Numb. 4. Thursday, November 9, 2023. Cleaned back gutters and downspouts of fir needles and birch […]
Little boy in prayer, I see you playing there. Aye, to pray is to play — what else can I say? . Every night, I sleep on the floor at Grandma’s house. . Dear seagull in the wind, I’m a fish without a fin. . Autumn leaf — a child’s flag in the cold. . The Rambler, Numb. 20. Saturday, May 26, 1750. On affectation and hypocrisy. Such pageantry be […]
The mail was late yesterday, but among the usual junk was a package containing two books from the Library of America — one being the volume by Henry James mentioned recently, Collected Travel Writings: The Continent; the other a collection of early work by Gertrude Stein, Writings: 1903-1932. And so the stacks grow a little higher and a little deeper. . I slept remarkably well last night, and woke up […]
Mighty kingdoms come and go, falling leaves on the old black road. And it’s an easy breath, through the stars, past the clothesline, and over the tracks, Into the closed mind, and into the sad heart, of humanity. An easy breath — yes, and a mad spark, of sanity. . Read the sixty-fourth chapter of Middlemarch. October 21, 2023. . [ 1904 ]
Another farm trip, another apple variety: Rosalee, by way of Honeycrisp and Fuji. Read the sixty-third chapter of Middlemarch. Added two photographs, Maple Time and Eternal Breath, taken yesterday at Silver Falls State Park, to the bottom of these pages. October 20, 2023. . [ 1903 ]
Back to the falls. The sun was shining in the hills above the fog. The maples in the canyon are glowing yellow. The trees still have most of their leaves, and are releasing them one by one like butterflies. Few hikers were out, most of them in their sixties and seventies. On the path below North Falls, one man we met looked at my beard and said with a smile, […]
The primitive human in me doesn’t want to be sitting here at a keyboard. It wants to be gathering wood or picking berries. If I must tell stories, let it be near a fire, sung as a poem, or pounded out on a drum. . In life as in the library — may the sweetest, ripest fruit always be just out of reach. . A cloudy morning for the eclipse. […]
The Rambler, Numb. 12. Saturday, April 28, 1750. The entire column given over to a touching letter signed “Zosima,” detailing the ill treatment received by the writer, a thoughtful, well-to-do woman fallen on hard times, when seeking work as a maid. The letter ends with thanks to an unnamed gentle woman who treated her with kindness and generosity, though she no longer had a position to fill. . From Walt […]
A very humid atmosphere, heavy with mold. Stand still long enough and mushrooms will sprout on your arms. Yes, those are your arms, the ones you keep covered far too much of the time for fear of just such an outcome. Embarrassing, you say, to walk through the grocery store with mushrooms on your arms. And I say, balderdash, let them erupt, and see if they’re not admired by the […]
William Michaelian 