William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Stars’

Earth Natives

Moonlight, streetlight, starlight. I saw the skunk again, just as I was starting my run. With its tail held high, it was crossing the street from the yard of one neighbor to that of another. When I was done, I met it again coming down the driveway of the house just west of ours. This time its tail was down. In no hurry at all, it crossed the street again. […]

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A Poetry of Unwritten Laws

If I see life as something imperfect in its design, I guarantee my own unhappiness. If I embrace it as it is, on its own terms, I become a participant in its mystery and wonder. As judge and jury, I will never be able to set things right. The thought that I might make improvements to an arrangement so grand that it effortlessly, even casually, includes an inexhaustible number of […]

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From Jade to Fern

Star detail. Northbound clouds, lit by a sun an hour from rising. Clover detail. Leaves cool, and only slightly damp. Spider detail. A web from jade to fern. Breath detail. The boundless, timeless happening of oneself. Zen detail. Unique, like everything and everyone else. The same, in a different way. Inseparable as peace and the gentle eyes of a cow, as joy and the sound of her bell. July 30, […]

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A Dewy Understanding

A slow run, the last sliver of moon just rising, the streets quiet and calm. With the arrival of the summer heat, our former high temperatures are now the lows, even as the days, little by little, grow shorter, and the cloudless, starry nights, as if by their own magic, add unto themselves. The grass in front of the house has yielded again to clover. The bare feet rejoice in […]

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The Miracle of Your Breath

The waning moon; a gentle arc of planets; a run that ends with a sprint — the ship is crowded, aye, but the deck is clear while the stars are out. Yesterday our eldest son climbed Mt. Whitney — a twenty-two-mile hike, four and a half hours to the summit, three hours down, the entire descent in a thunderstorm with hail and icy water all around. Back in Lone Pine, […]

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A Happening

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 ]

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A Turn In the Dance

After a slow start, and a slow run up the hill, the body said, Alright, enough nonsense, let’s go. And so off we ran, pushing beyond the comfortable limit of breath, and then beyond again and again, finding exhilaration at each new level, never once needing to open the mouth. See? You thought you had forgotten. Forty-seven degrees. Stars and clouds. The cool, rainy weather continues. I’ve been wearing them […]

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