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 […]
The primitive human in me doesn’t want to be sitting here at a keyboard. It wants to be gathering wood or picking berries. If I must tell stories, let it be near a fire, sung as a poem, or pounded out on a drum. . In life as in the library — may the sweetest, ripest fruit always be just out of reach. . A cloudy morning for the eclipse. […]
There’s nothing like exercise married to a needful purpose — Carrying water, chopping wood, pruning a vineyard, digging a grave, Building a house, hanging clothes on the line, painting a mural, Running to the next village with an important message — I could go on — but not as far as writing a poem. What about singing one? I don’t know. I wonder. Yes, yes — perhaps. . [ 1846 […]
A brisk walk this morning instead of a slow run. Farther, faster. How interesting. How odd. And then there were the robins, singing in the dark. One was on the sidewalk, absorbed in his song. As I went around him, he didn’t stop once. He seemed helpless, almost. Imagine that much music in your throat. . [ 1743 ]
While out running yesterday morning before dawn, and then again an hour or so later while doing some bending, stretching, and breathing exercises, I thought about what I was really doing. I was, in some small degree, lessening the distance between the life I’m living and the life I would have lived as a primitive, wandering, foraging human whose activities were devoted almost entirely to survival, a life in which […]
The song in his heart was stuck in his throat. And the attending doctor said to himself, I must be sure not to die this way. . [ 1672 ]
This thing you call effort, sings the stream — why do you still cling to it so? . [ 1589 ]
shovel deep / shovel strong / I love your forever song . [ 1584 ]
The morning began with a robin leading the way, From birch, to maple, to fig, invisible to me, singing, My favorite tree! My favorite tree! My favorite tree! Or so it seemed as I ran in the calm and misty dark, So it seemed, so it seemed, so it seemed, Each of us a playful happening, Like every leaf and star. . [ 1450 ]
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. […]
William Michaelian 