Is this really a certain day, of a certain month, in a certain year? Perhaps, if that is what one believes. And yet, it has been shown that one can, and will, believe anything — for instance, that peace and joy are a destination that can be arrived at through the intellect, when it is clear that those who choose to do battle on those grounds wear themselves out searching, […]
Everything I write is meant for an audience of one. I address no group, large or small, and I don’t spray my words scattershot with the idea that if I aim high enough, they’re sure to hit someone. No, I’m still the farm boy I’ve always been, with a homemade slingshot and the nearest clod. And if you happen to be the one I clobber, I apologize. In person, I’m […]
One of the blessings of memory is the opportunity it gives us to go back in our minds and apologize to those we have thoughtlessly made suffer, and promise them such a thing will never happen again. And though at first it may seem contradictory, the blessing is especially great when the person we are addressing has already passed on. When the wrong is acknowledged and the apology and pledge […]
When I was born, I was given a genocide. I was also given a dear dead uncle who had killed, and been killed, in war. I was given simplicity, poverty, hunger, and joy. I was given anger and disappointment. I was given pride and competition. I was given physical and psychological pain. I was given fear. I was given honesty. I was given laughter. I was given play. I grew […]
If I had no knowledge of clocks and calendars, how old would I be? If there were no one to tell me, would I be any age at all? But I do know. And since I do, I ask myself how this knowledge has shaped me. Has it limited my understanding? Has it expanded it? Has it done neither, or both? Moreover, I did not seek this knowledge. Like so […]
Words are shadows cast by meaning.My intent? Aye, there’s the rub. The sun is understanding:it leaves me blind, strands me in the wood. Recently Banned Literature, December 18, 2012 . [ 1257 ]
And what of the salamander we met on the trail, skin smooth, mud-colored, orange beneath, walking on its toes, crossing in the chilly damp? And what of the woodpecker knocking unseen from above? What of the massive cleft rock in the stream? Are we to think nothing of them and pretend their existence away? Or shall we carry them with us, and make ourselves living reminders that all is not […]
Tongue-tied twice by strange dreams, the details of which I scarcely remember, the second ending with my awkward, labored flight about twenty feet above a sidewalk past snowy steps leading to the door of a three-story brick building while in search of the other entrance — the place was familiar: it contained halls within halls within halls — I knew that much, but nothing more, the structure yet to make […]
Slow verse, dry stones, the river shows her age. Kind nurse, soft tones, her smile full of maple leaves. August 20, 2021 . Shall I Tell You of My Former Life? Shall I tell you of my former life? It happens in the strangest way, today, not yesterday, before tomorrow begins, and where my new life ends, over, and yet over, again. Like smoke, it rides the wind, and as […]
We do not have to understand each other to love each other.And without love, we will never understand. June 20, 2021 Shelter December 16, 2009#2 Pencil on Index Card Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen 2010 . [ 1140 ]
William Michaelian 