A Verb and a Noun
The gentle are strong, the wise are gentle. The violent are frightened and weak. Kingdoms are brief. Hate is belief. Love is a verb and a noun. . [ 1387 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Love’
When Gravity Meets Memory
On the trail a few days ago, I saw a very large cottonwood leaf, a brittle survivor of winter. It struck me as a kind of landmark, something that would always be there, even in its eventual absence, and in mine, its brown face held together by distinct veins, waiting patiently for an ant to walk by. I’ve thought of it each day since. Next time, if there is a […]
Space
Running through space, and with each breath the same space running through me, then becoming space again. The body passing through space, feeling space yield without breaking or being divided, fluid like water. Space clinging to the skin and entering through the pores. Space in the blood. Space in the cells. Space the distance between stars. Uphill and down, to stop at the door. Quietly, now, not to disturb. Space […]
The Life I Live
Is the life I’m living — here, now, today — truly worth sharing? And when it ends, will it be worth passing on? If it is, let this be my last will and testament: Blessed with this experience, I bid you love your own. . [ 1366 ]
Virtuoso
Whatever the medium or craft — music, language, carpentry, working with the soil — the virtuoso is, first and foremost, a life-long learner — a child in an aging body whose heart and mind are an image in kind of the flowering cosmos. If it were only a matter of skill, the word virtuoso wouldn’t have the meaning it does. The world would be overrun with them. And yet that, […]
Borne by the Bier
Sweet sleep, for we might say sleep is that from which we arise, to emerge at birth and find ourselves astonished by the light; and then, at the appointed time, that to which we return, ripe and ready for the next miracle. Sweet, for how could it not be? — as sweet as the sleep of the child one was, is, and will become — sweet as the dew on […]
Occasional Pieces
So far as it pertains to collecting and preserving what I feel are the best of my old writings and drawings, the time has come — if it has not passed already — to lay this work to rest. As such, I have tried to make Poems, Notes, and Drawings cohesive and readable from beginning to end. In that regard, I think of it as a book; I also see […]
Canvas 511
Can one impose when moved by love to speak?And if one loves, can he be imposed upon? Canvas 511 January 12, 2015 . [ 1347 ]
Canvas 1,130 — Two Children Playing
January 10, 1976. Forty-six years.Back then, my father’s mother referred to us as “two children playing.”She was seventy-five at the time. She’s still right. January 10, 2022 Canvas 1,130 January 10, 2018 . [ 1346 ]
A Flower for Marian
Today is the birthday of my father’s little sister, Marian. It is also the anniversary of my grandfather’s death in 1990 and the day the ancient orthodox Armenian Church observes Christmas — except in Jerusalem, where the Brotherhood at the Monastery of St. James follows an older calendar and Christmas falls on a later date. In the dimly lit, incense-laden sanctuary of St. James itself, there is a nook where […]
William Michaelian 