There were high winds and heavy rain throughout the night. Now that it’s light, I see several more fir branches are down. Most are about six to eight feet in length; the longest, with its thick end leaning against the fig tree, is about twelve feet, and two inches in diameter. And so nature’s cleanup of last year’s ice storm continues. Later I’ll go out and have a look at […]
Is this really a certain day, of a certain month, in a certain year? Perhaps, if that is what one believes. And yet, it has been shown that one can, and will, believe anything — for instance, that peace and joy are a destination that can be arrived at through the intellect, when it is clear that those who choose to do battle on those grounds wear themselves out searching, […]
James Baldwin: Collected Essays, in the fifteenth printing of the Library of America edition — a gift for Christmas from “The Kids.” At one-thirty in the morning, the sound of a raccoon climbing the fence near our bedroom window. Into the kitchen for a sip of water, the cold floor a comfort to my warm bare feet. Streetlights and a dusting of snow. December 26, 2021 . Early-Morning Streetlight For […]
And such were the questionsso persistently asked, that children taughtwords to speak at last, and the wordsused their eyes, and heldtheir lips fast. “Such Were the Questions”Recently Banned Literature, August 17, 2014 . That Little Bit I Say That little bit I say before it gives waybeneath its own weight, and the icy wind upon the faceof the statue I’ve become in this gardenof wonder, O dear one,hasten, grace alonecan […]
I first clicked “like” in 2010. I have no idea how many times I have clicked it since then, but it surely numbers in the thousands. When we lived on the farm, I clicked “like” in another way — with a pair of sturdy wooden-handled pruning shears. I clicked my way through the damp, foggy winters, up and down rows of vines and trees. Those clicks may well have numbered […]
It took me sixty-five years to discover the joy of working barefoot in the cold winter-wet yard. All those years in socks and shoes, trying to keep warm — what next will I unlearn? December 15, 2021. Afternoon. . Whispers The old man, they say, has lost his mind. But we do not lose what we give. And it is cold where they wait to be known. It is cold […]
Life, a familiar echo, a hound on the porch, the sweet pull of smoke; You say I’ve been away, and I dare must believe it; Or how, does your hand, cause the beating, of my heart? “Here Before”Recently Banned Literature, December 4, 2014 Canvas 120 December 8, 2010 . [ 1303 ]
Which is the greater fallacy — that we can know what is coming, or that we can be prepared? * For the latest news, see the cutting room floor. * Nothing dies. In its own time and at its own pace, everything becomes something else — the leaf, the cloud, the body, the star, the stone. What we see is a graceful dance and fleeting references to energy. * We […]
One of the blessings of memory is the opportunity it gives us to go back in our minds and apologize to those we have thoughtlessly made suffer, and promise them such a thing will never happen again. And though at first it may seem contradictory, the blessing is especially great when the person we are addressing has already passed on. When the wrong is acknowledged and the apology and pledge […]
When I was born, I was given a genocide. I was also given a dear dead uncle who had killed, and been killed, in war. I was given simplicity, poverty, hunger, and joy. I was given anger and disappointment. I was given pride and competition. I was given physical and psychological pain. I was given fear. I was given honesty. I was given laughter. I was given play. I grew […]
William Michaelian 
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