I can eat with gratitude and reverence, or I can thoughtlessly shovel it in. Either way, how I eat is how I live. If I eat thoughtlessly, my body will respond accordingly; we two will become coarse and crude, and be both cause and mirror of hunger and strife in the world. If I eat mindfully, and consume only what I need, the good food I eat will bring joy […]
If I fear death, then of course I fear life, because life and death can’t be separated: they’re mutually dependent, present in every process, inextricably intertwined. For proof, I need look no further than my body, where life and death are happening every minute of every day — not as a battle between the two, but in a movement so beautifully efficient and harmonious that it makes them, in terms […]
Layer upon layer: remove a thought, or even a word, and the image comes tumbling down. That’s one way of looking at it. Fearful symmetry: that’s another, the youthful tyger burning bright. Or, space in a face: the gladsome light of extinguished stars. Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee? ’Tis all a mystery. ~ [ 2023 ]
Whatever I meant in that moment and mood, it seems blurred and faded now. The words sound nice. Maybe that’s why I was satisfied with them at the time. But I can’t say I’m satisfied with them now. The drawing, though, I like better. I can’t criticize someone for the way he looks. His expression seems the result of having lived many lives in one. Now I wonder: is that, […]
It might be coincidence, and probably is; on the other hand, why would I have awakened from a dream this morning in which I was repeating the Japanese word kangai, of all things, when I, to the best of my memory and knowledge, have never encountered the word? “Strong feelings; deep emotion,” one definition says, which is mingled with a sense of “nostalgia or contemplation.” And now I look at […]
The dictionary in question is Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, published by G. & C. Merriam Company in 1924. It weighs just under fifteen pounds; the front cover is frayed and attached by only a few threads. I’ve since acquired older dictionaries, published early in the nineteenth century, in English and Spanish, and others of a more recent date, in French and German. Armenian, Japanese, and Russian […]
I’ve corrected the penultimate line. Instead of forgetting the earth is a ripe plum in a boy’s bleeding shirt pocket it’s now forgetting the earth is a ripe plum bleeding in a boy’s shirt pocket This might not seem a big thing, but I’m surprised, and a little disappointed, I didn’t notice it before. When our children were growing up, I told them often, Say what you mean, and mean […]
Another small collection of very short, related poems, The Poem I Wrote Is Glad It Missed the Train is a quiet mix of autobiography and family history. In the introduction, I say that each word is a kind of love letter, and I hold by that description. Certainly, each poem is. As brief as the they are, each contains much more than meets the eye, incorporating personal philosophy and nature […]
My reading life began early in childhood, with countless visits to our hometown library, the same library my mother frequented when she was growing up. I have no idea how many books I’ve read. I know others who have read more than I have, and who read more than I do, and who are better readers in terms of how much they can recall, and how well they can analyze […]
As a father, I know that there is at least one good thing I have done for our four children, and that was teaching them, by daily example, the value and fun of wordplay. And to this day, now in their thirties and forties, their conversation is vital and alive with puns and ridiculous combinations of words and meanings. They can read something like Letters and Figs without missing a […]
William Michaelian 