Begging Bowl
I will be the cherry tree, and you will never know. March 20, 2020. Afternoon. [ 700 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Poverty’
Image and Line
The autumn that began so early and that was so promising in terms of rain, has given way to a stagnant winter, even before winter has quite arrived. This morning, every molecule of vehicle exhaust hangs low in the street, held in place by fog. Wood smoke is a relief tantamount to fresh air. Inside, at least, one is able to mask the pollution with the scent of simple home […]
Windfall
When one lives a simple life, is there a need to impose order? Doesn’t disorder arise from wanting what isn’t needed, and by following what’s traditionally accepted as the right way of doing things — doing what we are expected to do, buying what we are expected to buy, believing what we are expected to believe — without examining their wide-ranging, murderous implications? Observe an angry, disordered household, and see […]
Poor Man’s Song
I have had my taste of country life, and of city life too. I have begged on my knees at the well, and my poor numb feet have known the pavement grain by grain. In each kind of life I have found an intimacy that gladdens every curse, and thwarts the common misconceptions. Each helps explain the other. The old graveyard that is surrounded by houses now, once stood alone […]
Tomorrow
Do my hands have lives of their own? I watch them setting out vegetable plants, and marvel at their confidence. The plants know they have nothing to fear, do not cease even for a moment their eager communications with the sun. My fingers are intuitive miniature plows. I might have been a barber. I visited a barber college once, with the thought that I might learn to ply that trade. […]
Necessity and an Ice-Water Bath
When we take more than we need, we take it from each other. And when we take it from each other, we steal. And what we steal, we waste, because it is more than we need. But the very crime is its punishment. It is poverty. It is war. It is a series of complicated political and religious beliefs that are no more than excuses. It is the unwillingness to […]
William Michaelian 