The beautiful thing about expecting nothing is that when it arrives, I’m always delighted and surprised. It’s only when I expect something that I’m disappointed. But, as they say, those days are gone. It’s been ages since I expected anything. And if you think this sounds silly, childish, frivolous, clever, or contrived, you should read the rest of this book. Read it page by page from the very beginning. Then […]
Book by book I go, dusting, cleaning, reading, examining, inhaling, arranging. A library is a strange, quiet joy. It is good fortune, and in these times, when ignorance is vaunted, heralded, and prized, it is a reminder that wisdom and sanity are still alive in the world. And then when the rain stops, I put on even older clothes and go out and prune the fig tree, which, over the […]
There’s a spider in the wind chime, and I’m in my web of winter thoughts and old gray clothes, blowing notes through hollow, crumbling walls, while the wind, so cold, sings prayers and moans her frozen colophons — once, twice, breath, ink . . . ghosts. [ 244 ]
For every love, every grief, every pain, an early-morning streetlight — but there is, I am certain, one star to explain. “Early-Morning Streetlight” Recently Banned Literature, December 29, 2014 I Like the Idea I like the idea that there’s an idea. In the bare trees of winter. In the wise-hungry birds. In madness and mittens. Out past the graveyard. Have you seen them? How they roost on the branches […]
Cold Days Yes, if I were an artist, I would paint you exactly like that, with snow in your hair. And the poor statue tried to answer, but could not. Songs and Letters, December 23, 2008 [ 233 ]
There’s an abiding sense that this work will occupy me for the rest of my life, and I can’t help but smile at the meaningful, meaningless, childish pleasure it brings. But there’s no urgency in knowing the process can be interrupted or ended at any moment. What could be more beautiful and natural than a man struck down mid-sentence in a state of dream and delight, or realizing his life […]
The owl I heard down the street a few weeks ago has taken up temporary residence in the fir trees behind our house. I hear it often in the evening when returning from my walk, and I hear it again this morning. Of course, I only think it’s the same owl. There seems to be only one in the neighborhood. And from my poetic-unscientific perspective, thinking and seeming are enough. […]
2010
From Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen
I look more like this drawing now than I did then.
Winter Sun
[ 218 ]
Behind the house, there are two kinds of white birch. One is the papery kind that sheds scrolls which look to me like ancient texts or musical scores. Its leaves are fewer and larger, and they fall much earlier. The other has a trunk that’s more rough and grooved. Its leaves are much smaller; there are thousands and thousands of them, and they fall like pale-yellow snowflakes well into December, […]
William Michaelian 