I haven’t raked the leaves from under the maples, or those that are piled deep beneath the big rhododendron by the front door. What’s living in, on, and under them plays a far more important role in the local ecology than any so-called neatness I might achieve. The walk is swept. The flowerbed is ready for spring. That’s enough tidiness. Behind the house, the irises are pushing, and an abundance […]
A deep breath / and then / the word is a bell / you invite to sound November 2, 2021 . Your Breath, My Hand You begin slowly, speaking softly, saying, One word at a time, gently we go, with love, just as if you are a cushion of fresh green moss on a wall, beyond which bare fields sleep until spring. And then someone happens along and replies: I, […]
barefoot in the garden / I am as warm as the first sunflower sprout April 2, 2021 . [ 1065 ]
Snow on the lilac — my mother has already forgotten that day. Poems, Slightly Used, April 27, 2008 . [ 1050 ]
Yesterday afternoon I saw a great brown hawk, perhaps three hundred feet from the ground, standing on air, facing a cold spring wind, with its wings open wide. When he allowed it to take him, even eternity was surprised. Dark gray clouds. Rain. Clear blue sky. While I was out, I could not always see him, but I could hear his cries. A storm in the pine: two startled mourning […]
After her walk, I find a sprig of plum, drinking from a baby food jar. Poems, Slightly Used, March 30, 2009 . [ 1040 ]
now the snow is melting and love is dancing near the tiny maple of a crystal chandelier Recently Banned Literature, March 6, 2017 . [ 1039 ]
The apricot buds are still closed, but not as tightly. Those most advanced are showing little puffs of color — this, after the entire tree was encased in a thick coating of ice during the ice storm. The tree and I are cosmic relatives. We are different expressions of the same energy. Here is a junco, a wren. Clouds. Wind. We all are friends. Rejoice, the beating of wings, spring […]
Fennel seed tea with just a bit of blackberry honey: a timely cure for all the physical and mental ailments of which I remain unaware. On the path beyond Goose Lake, we came to a place where a tree was down, blocking our way. Just inside the network of slender bare branches, there were two brown rabbits. They kept their eyes on us as we made the long way around. […]
This spring, everything that blooms has bloomed heavily, in scented blossom clouds. Last spring it was the opposite, a sparse bloom in pale wisps, like an invalid’s dry cough, or a storm that disperses before it arrives. It rained again last night. At six this morning, the trees were dripping in the bright sunlight. At the top of the hill, even the old one-sided maple looked like it was in […]
William Michaelian 