William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Life’

A Magnificent Beard

Yes, I’m in pretty good shape for the shape I’m in, but I’m also banged up around the edges. For instance, no one would look at me and think I’m younger than my age. They’d likely think I’m older. Be that as it may, I’m often greeted as if it’s understood I have a sense of humor. And just the other day, the tow truck driver who came to rescue […]

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The Garden and the Poem

I’ve lived long enough to know that whatever I try to do is weakened by the effort. Whatever I try to say, is rendered less clear. I’ve learned that even before I begin, the doing and saying is already being done for me, and that by keeping breath in this body, life is allowing me to take part in a process as playful as it is timeless and profound. Life […]

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Mudpies, Fairies, and Make-Believe

Like every expression of the infinite, we, as a species, are always changing. In a sense, we’re here without having arrived, and never will arrive. Versions of us give way to other versions, none better or worse, each seemingly complete, yet not quite fully itself. We exist in a miracle of variety and diversity that’s playful in its very essence, part of a universal game of mudpies, fairies, and make-believe. […]

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The Universal Flow

Deep in our ancient programming, we know how to be healthy and whole. But we believe in so much nonsense that we undermine ourselves, and are taken in by the ones sending the bill. Life wants us to be well — not just in mind and body, but in a universal way that intimately involves everything seen and unseen, every grain of sand, every drop of rain, every molecule and […]

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The Best of the Best

What grew in me without my knowing, what crept stealthily into my burgeoning little boy’s identity and went unrecognized for years, was a keen sense of competition. The expectation, need, and desire to be the best was administered in tiny doses without their knowing by family, friends, acquaintances, and teachers. The best reader, the best speller, the best runner, the best at throwing or kicking a ball — the process […]

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Holy Torment

Once I realized I would live forever, I forgot all about it. Truth be told, if in my life there’s a common theme, it’s that almost without exception, whatever flash of insight I have, or feel I have, I forget within a day or two. And so it might be said that my present understanding is an accumulation of inspired residue dating back to childhood, those tiny bits which, against […]

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Hey, Universe

In me is a little something of everyone who ever lived. Deep in the code, I’ve been through it all. The universe, too, is in my flesh, blood, and bones. That means I’m part of the greatest, most efficient recycling project ever known. As such, I’ve learned not to cling to the idea of being who I am, or who others think I am, or to worry about what will […]

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Upon Waking

It isn’t a matter of using the day, but of finding a way to express one’s gratitude. Or it might be a matter of finding one’s gratitude and expressing the way. * Junco bathing in a puddle — sunlight-celebration. * Death is the poet’s last poem. Life is the page it’s written on. * The body ages like a star. The mind is its light, seen from afar. * Joy […]

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Concord

Concord — harmony; a grape; a town; Emerson; Thoreau; all that’s forgotten, but not unknown. * Negativity: the great pandemic. Yet the cure is instantaneous, and starts with yourself. * How strange, being a member of a species smart enough to kill itself. And here is our mother, gently whispering over us, Live, and we think her voice is only the sound of the waves, the wind in the trees. […]

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