William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Mist’

A Happening

The morning began with a robin leading the way, From birch, to maple, to fig, invisible to me, singing, My favorite tree! My favorite tree! My favorite tree! Or so it seemed as I ran in the calm and misty dark, So it seemed, so it seemed, so it seemed, Each of us a playful happening, Like every leaf and star. . [ 1450 ]

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Is This What It Is?

What miracle will this body reveal today? What lesson? What truth? I’m ready. I’m listening. This breath is the proof. There’s a path in the canyon. It winds through the mist. Is it this? Waterfalls and ravens. Stones and downed trees. Is it that? Or is it the place where my ancestors once walked? Is it their well and their garden? Is it their dark crusty bread? The song of […]

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The Misty Presence

At thirty-seven degrees in the canyon, with everything dripping, the falls roaring, and the stream running high, it didn’t take long for the soles of my bare feet and the thin foot bed of my sandals to become soaked and coated with mud. But I never felt cold. Twice, farther on, I washed them together in the swiftly moving water, which was not only cleansing and invigorating, but felt positively […]

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In the Interim

If I had no knowledge of clocks and calendars, how old would I be? If there were no one to tell me, would I be any age at all? But I do know. And since I do, I ask myself how this knowledge has shaped me. Has it limited my understanding? Has it expanded it? Has it done neither, or both? Moreover, I did not seek this knowledge. Like so […]

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Destruction and Joy

Finished early this morning: The Diversity of Life, by Edward O. Wilson. The leaves are changing in the canyon. Yesterday morning, all through our three-and-a-half-mile walk from North Falls to Winter Falls, to Twin Falls, and then back to North Falls and on to Upper North Falls, the canopy was dripping from the previous night’s rain. In fact, it was raining, but the rain itself was being absorbed well above […]

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The Patience of Ferns

Four miles of dusty trails, with side trips down to what is now a very low-running stream. No clouds, no fog, no mist, no smoke. Far off, on the other side of the canyon, the great echoing voice of a raven. The talk now is of rain, and the patience of ferns. Bare feet. Thirty-nine degrees. Even in drought, we outlive our own death. September 16, 2021 . [ 1229 […]

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Neskowin

When the tide is out, one can see the barnacled stumps of an ancient ghost forest on the beach at Neskowin, one of several along the Oregon coast. Seen through the mist, the trees look like spirits — part wood, part rock, part man. They are Sitka spruce, and carbon dating has revealed their age to be around two thousand years. Our feet bare, we walked the beach for about […]

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