As a father, I know that there is at least one good thing I have done for our four children, and that was teaching them, by daily example, the value and fun of wordplay. And to this day, now in their thirties and forties, their conversation is vital and alive with puns and ridiculous combinations of words and meanings. They can read something like Letters and Figs without missing a […]
Season is one of those words that goes to our origin in language; as we ripen, so do the words and the languages we use. At the same time, we are the words and languages we use. And, for better or for worse, the words and languages use us, and we are thereby revealed. This is how they change and grow, how they disappear or slowly crumble into proud obsolescence. […]
James Joyce aside, there’s a complexity to simplicity we humans create seemingly for the joy of wallowing in the confusion that results, and seeing the puzzlement it brings to others. An instance of this can be found in A Listening Thing, wherein Stephen tries to make sense of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, which, like Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, have been causing confusion for ages, some of which is quite […]
Shall we examine our illnesses, and give them truer, more meaningful names, such as The North Wind, The Reminder, and The Teacher? Then we might say, I am visited by The North Wind, or, I am thankful for The Reminder. We might say, I learned great things from The Teacher. I have The Mystery. I do not fear The End. We Might Say. December 29, 2021. Poems, Notes, and Drawings. […]
I collect sentences as I collected sticks and feathers when I was a boy, and then I forget them when night-time comes. How much of pain can be attributed to its original cause, and how much to the fear it will grow worse, and maybe not end? If I’m still alive at suppertime, I think I’ll set the table with the yellow dishes my parents often used when I was […]
There’s a ghost in the neighborhood, a skinny stray cat wailing like a human; isn’t it interesting that you know what I mean? . [ 1788 ]
No need for meaning when you see one thing is every thing and every thing is one. . [ 1751 ]
The two little girls were surprised when I gave them each a sprig of lilac and asked them to smell the flowers. They were hushed, too, because in their boredom they’d torn them off, along with others and many tender leaves. And they were saddened, when I gently told them we’d given the plant to my mother many years ago, that it was her favorite, and that though she had […]
This morning, with the thought that warmer weather might someday arrive, we visited a nursery in the country about seventeen miles north of here, a large wholesale business that welcomes retail customers during the months of April, May, and June. On the way, it rained steadily as we crossed swollen creeks and drove by fields, lakes, and ponds, not always sure which were which. While we were inside the nursery’s […]
A fine school of words, and the fishermen asleep at their nets. . [ 1668 ]
William Michaelian 