You ask what happens when we die, I say the weather’s fine and the soil’s warming nicely. You ask how to make good garden compost, I say yes, that’s it exactly. What’s it? you want to know. I say the dirt between your toes, the ever changing clouds. You say you hate to leave it all behind. I say try this shovel, it’s the one my father used. . [ […]
Men seek wisdom, sunflower sprouts spring from the warming soil. * Rich or poor, for your own sake, ask yourself what you would do if money weren’t a concern. * Love is the sound the shovel makes. * Birch clock: the dead branch, the singing bird. * Cedar clock: the low branch, the rope swing. * Old or young, ask yourself what you would do if time weren’t a concern. […]
Thirty-seven degrees. A snow sky. Vegetable plants in the garden shops. The heart leaps, a bird peeps, returns to its fir needle bed. I wish I had written that. And the life that led to it? Do you wish you had lived that as well? A fondness for quoting Jesus — but crucifixion is something else. A crown of thorns. Nails through the palms. Snow in April? Isn’t that unusual? […]
Yesterday afternoon I cleared the driveway of snow with one of the old manure shovels my father and grandfather used on the farm during the Great Depression and after the Second World War, and which we continued to use in later years, and which now reside, along with several other tools from that earlier time, in an old barrel in the little shed behind the house. While I was out, […]
One last shovel-turning of the worm-full garden space and on into winter — accompanied by this thought: maybe the time has come to write less, and dig more. December 3, 2021 . [ 1308 ]
The mild rainy weather has given rise to a new generation of mold, creating a scented atmosphere as complex and alluring as a newly opened grave. November 15, 2021 . November The ear fills with sky-sounds, the eye with cloud-motion and leaf-fall. Distances are not what we think them at all, but blessings ripe and uncountable. The glad-spent remains of the summer garden are brought to the pile. Manure is […]
old shovel from the farm / still loves / to look / for worms March 14, 2021 . [ 1048 ]
William Michaelian 