Owing to morning temperatures in the low-twenties, the birdbaths have seized up again. The air, meanwhile, is very dry, the streets are dry, and every bush and twig. Saturday afternoon, I was able to climb onto the roof with our electric blower and hundred-foot extension cord, and blow off all of the debris left behind by the fall storms. The fir needles were deep; the cones were plentiful; and there […]
A clear, chilly morning of thirty degrees. Out under the stars, I ran for the forty-second consecutive day, making six weeks of barefoot sandal running. I saw no one, and was met by only one car, which was driven by one of this country’s many thousands of “independent contractors” delivering packages. I’m about halfway through Melville’s Typee, the narrator of which has come to question who is truly civilized — […]
I finished pruning the fig tree. I don’t know how long it took, but I guess it to be around four hours, which includes cutting the brush into little pieces for the recycling bin. I did the work in three afternoon sessions. During the last session, I heard the sound of a mourning dove in flight, and looked up in time to see it winging its way north. A second […]
On the last day of the year, in a used bookstore we visit every so often in West Salem, I chanced upon an unread copy of a Library of America edition containing three works by Herman Melville, all having to do with the sea: Typee; Omoo; and Mardi. Priced at only eight dollars and fifty cents, the book was still in its original white slipcase, and its ribbon marker had […]
A very humid atmosphere, heavy with mold. Stand still long enough and mushrooms will sprout on your arms. Yes, those are your arms, the ones you keep covered far too much of the time for fear of just such an outcome. Embarrassing, you say, to walk through the grocery store with mushrooms on your arms. And I say, balderdash, let them erupt, and see if they’re not admired by the […]
Well, I’ll put them somewhere. Then I’ll move about among them, admire them as I pass, and take them every now and then from their shelf or stack. I’ll read a few lines at random; I’ll marvel at how they’re made, and feel their weight in my hands. For now, though, they’re still on my desk. Melville, as it turns out, is rather perfumey — something I didn’t notice at […]
Note: To operate the camera, cradle your life in such a way, standing above it, and in it, looking down, through it, and all around, from childhood to dawn, then press the button that takes the picture — and be sure not to frown, when you realize you forgot the film. . Thoreau’s journal, entries for March 2 and March 4, 1854. The First Bluebird. Golden Senecio Leaves. The Melting […]
If the mind’s a muscle that remembers its pain, Then work it, work it, and work it again. And if pleasure be its prowess and rightful domain, Raise the chalice, and treasure the palace it’s in. October 24, 2019. Late Afternoon. Upon finishing Herman Melville: Complete Poems. Library of America, 2019. [ 551 ]
In 1851, in a journal entry written in late-September, Thoreau writes in its own separate paragraph the following sentence: The poet writes the history of his body. This statement, or observation, occurs seemingly out of the blue, between references to the growth pattern of pine trees and the tendency of a certain kind of grass to burn slowly and steadily without flame. In Part 2 of Clarel, his 18,000-line poem […]
Dahlia leaves, intensely green after a thunderstorm. Ferns and moss, a fertile, humid prayer. Cleaning the iris bed — old, worn mothers with their fearless children. The scent of mushrooms soon to sprout. A friendly neighbor says a spirit haunts his house. Books — Walt Whitman and John Muir. Melville and Thoreau. And how strange Emerson, if he’d had a beard. September 12, 2019 [ 510 ]
William Michaelian 