One day, at a very early age, I reached the conclusion that I would live forever. I remember saying to myself on that occasion, in all simple certainty, I cannot die. It was a revelation, not a plea, one which arose not from long deliberation or fear, but from the earth itself, and seemed to emanate from the palm of my upheld hand. This startling new truth was borne out […]
Hot days and warm nights. But it’s all relative. We used to call these temperatures cool in the San Joaquin Valley. Still, one hundred is one hundred, and seventy is seventy — just as my name is what’s stated on my birth certificate, and on all of my other “important papers,” the electronic ones included. In other words, it is, and it isn’t. Or, to frame it as a question: […]
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 […]
The world comes to the tree. Stars, birds, breeze — none can resist. We cross oceans and continents to see the sequoia, the cedar, the bristlecone, just to be in their presence. And some of us are like trees. Some of us understand that the universe is contained in a raindrop. Some of us are in tune with that memory and revelation. Some of us stand in the yard. Some […]
Captured in the same breath, so to speak, as “So Many Angels,” I wrote and published two things the following morning. Both strike me as worth preserving. This is the first. Between the Ivy and the Big Rhododendron Yesterday morning in the kitchen we were talking about our old cat, Joe, and how at peace with the world he was in his declining years, which he spent in our […]
See how the fig tree declares her passion before her leaves are on, how the dogwood, winded down, is bridal in her bloom, how the birds, busy in your branches, have shaken you, and flown. “Revelation” Recently Banned Literature, April 22, 2014 Twelve Poems, Poets International Blossom, v. Carry me in, carry me out — you, a shoe, and I, a wet petal on your sole. [ 346 ]
I’m a fictional character of my own making. I’ve lived this fiction all my life, adding to it one thought, one word, one sentence, one page at a time. And while it isn’t my intention to deceive, or to create a world of make-believe, by the very process of living I do create such a world. This is my reality. And a beautiful one it is, because it includes you […]
William Michaelian 