Doorway Poem
A hummingbird stands in place, eyes upon my face, looking in. The cedar — moves a little closer — and then the lilac, grass, and breeze. We all live here — for now — and we come and go as we please. [ 731 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Poetry’
Universal
Star so pale — her worn out shoes, her tired back, her eyes once blue. Sky so low — garden wall — child listens, sirens wail. Where they go — what I know — a quiver full of symbols in a gale. [ 729 ]
Low Tide
It’s easy to say, I want the best for everyone and everything, but it’s quite plain to me I don’t know what that best is. Lovely birch — her paper bark — no need for a pen today. [ 728 ]
Summer Service
I might have become a priest. What a disaster that would have been. And yet, had it happened, I might have found it the most wonderful thing in the world. Or maybe it did happen — long ago and far away, in a rocky, mountainous land. Summer Service a fly on the eucharist — shsh, shsh little children sound asleep on the cool stones on the cool stones sound […]
Fossil Poetry
The well ran dry. He dug deeper, and deeper, his back to the soft spring rain. Fossil Poetry I’m tempted to say writing is what keeps me sane, but I think we’d better reserve judgment on that. The opposite could easily be true. Writing might be what keeps me insane. Or, my insanity might be what keeps me writing. Then again, it might be my sanity that keeps me […]
A Lesser Poet
The world has lost a great poet — so it’s often said. And yet isn’t death what finally and most fully reveals a great poet’s gift to this world? And so when the poet dies, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the world has gained him, or her, instead? A Lesser Poet I will be remembered as a lesser poet, if at all — a clumsy ox […]
May Day
I’m still reading Vincent’s letters, and will be for quite some time. I continue with Thoreau’s journal, a fourteen-volume project. I’m about fifty pages into William Wetmore Story and His Friends, from Letters, Diaries, and Recollections, by Henry James, published in two volumes in 1904. I’ve begun the Library of America edition of John Muir’s nature writings. And I’ve just finished at Home with Disquiet, a wonderful new collection of […]
Shoreline
The moonlight, and our boat — don’t they make a lovely pair? Their faded paint, and silver hair? O dear one — how long have we — been sitting here? [ 720 ]
x Frames
When I see birds chase each other through the maze of the budding fig tree without so much as touching a twig, I realize how quickly they must be processing the visual information given them by their eyes. If I view the scene at x frames per second, they must be viewing it at x frames a great many times over; it is this, perhaps, that makes them wise. Perhaps, […]
One More Cherry Blossom Poem
Death, or politics? Politics have neither death’s dignity nor purpose; and they lack death’s sublime, optimistic future; for after death, that which is once said to have been living, goes on living in myriad forms and ways; whereas politics are an accumulation of toxic waste matter that is dangerous to all living things. That politics often cause death, is reason enough to set them aside. Why sacrifice my precious energy […]
William Michaelian 