William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Reading’

An Exciting Life

Yesterday evening our eldest son was here, and, as we often do, we talked about where I might put more bookshelves, even though there doesn’t seem to be any place for them. I said I thought we should go ahead and build several, and that the simple truth of their physical presence would answer the question. There is room, in other words, but more shelves are needed to find it. […]

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The Way

My way is not the way. The way is your way. My way can never be your way. Your way can never be mine. I can follow your way. You can follow mine. Then we have no way. But all is not lost. For no way is the way to the way. . Read Bees and Their Keepers, by Lotte Möller, Pages 119-124. For the month of August: A Honey […]

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As a Ghost Might

The Big Dipper is kind to streetlights — lets them boast, as a ghost might. . Now, you should know there’s a great being, gentle, wise, and invisible, who goes out at night and pulls up the roads, and carries them off in her arms, and who leaves trees, grass, and flowers growing in her path — To remind them, she says, and the breeze agrees, Yes. . Read the […]

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Kindness and Wings

When I ran this morning, I wore gloves and a snow cap, yet my bare feet were warm. . I’m aware that I write for a very small audience. I’m also aware that each member of that audience brings something to the writing that it most certainly needs: kindness and wings. . Gutter Journal, Numb. 4. Thursday, November 9, 2023. Cleaned back gutters and downspouts of fir needles and birch […]

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Sawing and Singing

I didn’t turn on the computer this morning until seven-thirty, after I’d been up for three and a half hours. I exercised, I ran, I sipped my six-ounce cup of pour-over coffee; I ate breakfast; I sat, not thinking or doing anything at all. I took a shower, dried myself, and rubbed some olive oil on my heels. Only then, after making a cup of chamomile tea, did I open […]

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Autumn Leaf

Little boy in prayer, I see you playing there. Aye, to pray is to play — what else can I say? . Every night, I sleep on the floor at Grandma’s house. . Dear seagull in the wind, I’m a fish without a fin. . Autumn leaf — a child’s flag in the cold. . The Rambler, Numb. 20. Saturday, May 26, 1750. On affectation and hypocrisy. Such pageantry be […]

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The Best Remedy

Millions of people, changing their clocks, “falling back” to “standard time.” Aye, let us save, let us use, let us measure, let us lose, that which does not exist. . We can’t explain this great mystery; still, there are parts of it that we find amusing or interesting. . Read Bees and Their Keepers, by Lotte Möller, Pages 85-96. For the month of May: A Visit to Lennart and His […]

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The Body As

The body as teacher. The body as friend. The body as substance. The body as dream. The body as sailor. The body as ship. The body as sea. The body as troubadour. The body as flute. The body as song. The body as ash. The body as wind. The body as tree. . Back from an early-morning run in a very warm, dense rain. . Thoreau’s journal, March 9, 1854. […]

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High and Dry

This is why I’m glad the roof leak didn’t land on the Swift set: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D.,Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin New York : William Durell and Co. (1812-1813) Nineteen volumes of a twenty-four-volume set,part of the much larger British Classics series These were purchased online June 3, 2015. I don’t remember what I paid for them, but I think it was around sixty or […]

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Leaky Bees

The morning was spent in the company of a roofer, in pursuit of a leak we noticed in time last night to prevent damage to our old upright piano. Luckily, only a little water landed on a paperback containing the poems of Ezra Pound, leaving the young Ezra with a gentle wave in his hair. Had the water reached the Jonathan Swift set from 1812 and 1813, I — but […]

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