William Michaelian

Poems, Notes, and Drawings

Tag Archive for ‘Wonder’

The Best Remedy

Millions of people, changing their clocks, “falling back” to “standard time.” Aye, let us save, let us use, let us measure, let us lose, that which does not exist. . We can’t explain this great mystery; still, there are parts of it that we find amusing or interesting. . Read Bees and Their Keepers, by Lotte Möller, Pages 85-96. For the month of May: A Visit to Lennart and His […]

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A Raft of Lemons

I awoke early this morning feeling it was time to start the day. Then I read the kitchen clock — 2:58. So I stretched out on the floor again and slept for what felt like a good solid hour. The clock read 3:31. Ten minutes later, I was out in the street for a run. . A raft of lemons adrift at sea. The funny way you look at me. […]

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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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Foolish Questions

On the tracks to the east, a train’s heading north. A long train. North through the fog, beneath a full moon. The moon that kept us up most of the night. Light in the room. Light between the closed blinds. But it’s the silence up there that I wonder about. I can’t help thinking how strong the moon must be. Is that why it’s round? To keep it from being […]

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That Little Bit I Say

And such were the questionsso persistently asked, that children taughtwords to speak at last, and the wordsused their eyes, and heldtheir lips fast. “Such Were the Questions”Recently Banned Literature, August 17, 2014 . That Little Bit I Say That little bit I say before it gives waybeneath its own weight, and the icy wind upon the faceof the statue I’ve become in this gardenof wonder, O dear one,hasten, grace alonecan […]

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Feathers and Dust

When once we see everything is a flower — from wayward child to walnut shell, changing sky to ancient, mottled hand — we understand that no measurement or value can express the shimmering grace of this world. Life is so fine and so rare, it cannot be fathomed by means of comparison, or appreciated on such narrow, limiting terms. Just as there is profound strength in the whole, the individual […]

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My Childhood Self

In terms of imagination, joy, and wonder, I am as much my childhood self as ever. I am a dreamer, and the world passes through me as a dream. That is my reality. There has been an accumulation of facts, of knowledge, yes — but as useful as some of these are, or seem to be, they are only superficial adornments. They are not mine; I lay no claim to […]

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Luxury and Wonder

Trace luxury to its source: a refrigerator is a cool stream or a block of ice; a light bulb is the sun; a book is a troubadour or elder; a car is two bare feet; an oven is fire; food is the earth; a computer is the mind; breath is life. Trace each source to its source: wonder is defined. June 24, 2021 . [ 1144 ]

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