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. […]
The days are about survival. A man out early, wishing not to be seen, peddles off with my zucchini in hand. It’s all for a good cause: to quiet his hunger. Shall I rush after him? Shall I pretend I can feed him with the hollow fruit of my imagination? Shall I explain to him that he has himself been imagined in these very lines? Or has he imagined me? […]
Silent, motionless, unblinking: after four years, robins have built another nest in the fig tree. I don’t know how many times I’ve passed under it without knowing it was there; several today; and recently when the heat was at its peak, I moved several potted plants into the shade, very near where the mother is patiently sitting. An ocean breeze has cooled the valley. Yesterday the temperature fell to eighty-seven […]
Five in the morning. Seventy degrees. A light dew. Is there a way to separate memory from smell? It seems one is dry grass, and the other is ripening fruit. Shall we ask the toes? Is there anything they do not know? Early morning watering. The humans are expecting temperatures today as high as one hundred seven degrees. The plants, though, show no sign of concern. Which should we believe? […]
O, dear one, life is a lightly blown kiss. Can you imagine a love like this? Or will you choose pride, regret, and loneliness? “Which Way the Breeze?” Recently Banned Literature, August 2, 2017 . Thistledown Freedom is the art of letting go, now, of all that will be washed away in the end — our prejudices and cares, our politics, arrogance, religion, and despair, our national identities, our borders, […]
There’s not one thing in this wide world that’s shunned by life or overlooked — no blade of grass, no grain of sand, no rock or shell, no ocean wave, no gull, no tree, no sun, no moon, no snail. Each, in its given way and time, trembles and is known; each sways and nods and bows; each is part of a timeless dance, even in its temporary death and […]
Dear crane fly / we have something in common / a long life in a short time April 29, 2021 . [ 1092 ]
I scratch the surface. It laughs, and scratches back. . Something Between Us It’s natural that we probe the universe for signs of life, but remember: the universe itself is a living thing, and the seeming nothingness we call space is as vital to our existence as that which, to our perception, we find it contains. We may classify space as nothing, or call it emptiness, but it’s the medium […]
Trust — surrender your control. It’s a fiction anyway. . Lilacs and Apricots The time in this kingdom between lilacs and apricots, when rainbows are bridges and nights are cool, when fate is as silent as the tombs are still, the throne is for children to ascend at will. Recently Banned Literature, May 19, 2014 . [ 1083 ]
We are the bird, the cloud, the drifting insect. We are the waterfall. We are delicate bits of dandelion fluff. We are all of space, and all that space contains. And we contain that space: space enters and leaves our bodies with every breath. Space is not only out there, where the stars are. It is here, where Earth is, and where we are. And we — you, I, and […]
William Michaelian 
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