If it’s important to remember our childhood darkness, trauma, or pain, then it’s even more important to remember our joy, because joy is our natural state, the original spirit and foundation of our very existence. If we cling to our pain, that pain becomes our identity. If our pain seems a greater, more powerful force than joy, then we need to work harder at remembering our own joy, however small […]
It isn’t a matter of using the day, but of finding a way to express one’s gratitude. Or it might be a matter of finding one’s gratitude and expressing the way. * Junco bathing in a puddle — sunlight-celebration. * Death is the poet’s last poem. Life is the page it’s written on. * The body ages like a star. The mind is its light, seen from afar. * Joy […]
afternoon sun / the first ripe apple / and an oven to bake it in . [ 1581 ]
Sometimes, sitting in the warm fall sun, I feel I’m waiting for my wings to dry. . [ 1568 ]
They say I can’t see the stars. But I see them all, When the dew is on. . [ 1559 ]
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. […]
The movement of birds, leaves, and insects; the changing patterns of light and shade; clouds; a walker passing by; all accompanied by subtle changes in humidity and temperature — these are the things we miss when we stay indoors and focus for too long on books and screens. Not only do we miss them, we miss the naturally beneficial medicine of our physical engagement and response to random stimuli, our […]
Vivid blue sky and great white clouds — not too warm for an afternoon walk, but far too bright without the shade of a wide-brimmed straw hat; temporarily blinded, though, by a stretch of new sidewalk. An impromptu soup of garlic, onion, purple kale, potato (one of which was baked yesterday, the other raw) and white kidney beans (cannellini, it says on the can); olive oil; salt; pepper; a generous […]
sudden rain / warm sun / child runs / a race with the clouds Canvas 1,263 May 15, 2022 . [ 1462 ]
Two and a half miles and two owls. Robins and rain. Petals and pollen. Street, feet, sandal-squeak. And that was my run. My brother’s funeral has come and gone. It was in Edmonton. We were here at home. There was video provided the next day, despite a power outage during the service, which left the room dark. A side door had to be opened to admit some light. Admit the […]
William Michaelian 