A robin is building a nest in the rhododendron just outside the window of the little bedroom at the end of the hall. I was on the floor stretched out on my back for an after-lunch rest when her movement caught my eye. If she follows through and all goes well, we’ll be able to watch as a new family of robins comes into being. The plant isn’t a dense […]
With the morning light streaming in through the front window, it strikes me that if I can recognize and let go of even one dull-minded, habitual response a day, I’ll eventually become so vital and attentive that if anyone notices, they won’t know what they’re noticing, and yet they’ll be glad. It will be a revolution, quiet, flagless, and bloodless, with no leaders or followers, and nothing to cling to […]
A falling star — a petal bright, from the flower. * Some books I leave open, so that during daylight hours, I can read a few lines from them in passing. Diaries, journals, letters, poetry, too — and it’s all poetry, beginning with the light coming in through the window. Or call it pollen, or honey, because the words coat the wings, and sweeten the tongue. * How many things […]
Not many days ago, and an equally uncertain number of nights, I read backward and aloud the last page of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable. Standing before our big front window, paced by the commas, I read the words slowly and with feeling. When I reached the top of the page, I wondered if the author might not have done the same thing himself. It’s possible he could even have written […]
Dragonfly season here is a show of grace; color; delicacy. The insects rise and pause and land with an ethereal weightlessness we don’t associate with the much larger dragonflies of our youth in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where they stood on air and rumbled about in our classrooms at school, entering and leaving freely through the open doors and unscreened windows. During the warm months, which seemed to last most […]
There’s a young robin building a nest on top of a light fixture under the eaves next to the little door that leads from the garage into the backyard. She worked at it Sunday for about eleven hours, having great difficulty at first due to the slippery metal, but by evening she’d managed to form what looked like a relatively secure base. Fluffy and determined, she resumed work yesterday morning […]
I raked some leaves that didn’t need raking, Just to feel my muscles and lungs. I walked some ground that didn’t need walking, To see how the sky would respond. I watched some birds that didn’t need watching, I ate an orange that didn’t need eating, I thought a thought that didn’t need thinking, And the thought thought the same about me. Then I sat, then I stood, then I […]
Early yesterday afternoon, like a feathered storm, a swarm of bushtits settled briefly in the juniper, then moved to the dahlias, where, in communal glee, they hopped and pecked their way from joint to joint along the branches and stems as if they were attending a fall smorgasbord. Their visit lasted about five of our human earth minutes. Part of it took place within my reach, as I stood motionless […]
Smoke. But we have windows. Through and between smudges and spots, we view a tiny part of the world. Mystery. But we have knowledge. Through and between fear and belief, we view a tiny part of ourselves. September 8, 2021 . Tell Me If you cannot see the beauty, in your beard, in your body, in the brevity, abundance, or absence, of your own tender breasts; the down, or the […]
Near the receding edge of lily-infested Goose Lake, in the brambly shadows just beyond the dense growth of Wapato now in flower, there’s a casual assemblage of Bittersweet nightshade. The shoreline, such as it is, and visible nowhere, has retreated about forty feet — normal for the time of year — at this one remaining place of access. On the far side, seen through one gap, is another colony of […]
William Michaelian 