Pause — March 5, 2019
Pause
After all is said and done
the wind chime
is still
listening
to the falling snow
[ 299 ]
Canvas 360 — February 17, 2014
Poem
Light
is
my
prayer.
Poems, Slightly Used, March 9, 2011
[ 291 ]
Canvas 360 — Poem
Canvas 358 — February 11, 2011
Starry Night
Dear old face,
lined deep to harbor cookie crumbs.
All the mice and men
who’ve held you,
forgotten,
every
one.
Poems, Slightly Used, February 27, 2011
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Canvas 358 — Starry Night
Inheritance — February 8, 2019
Inheritance
Every winter,
we pruned
the same
long
rows
of vines.
Now we’re older;
some of us have died.
I see the vineyard in my mind:
the brush is tangled, leafless, waiting.
Songs and Letters, February 4, 2007
Winter Poems, Cosmopsis Books, 2007
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Inheritance
And then there are the unremembered nights, the unwritten nights,
and the countless ways the dream of light transcends them.
Dream of Light — January 29, 2019
[ 273 ]
Dream of Light
I thought I had better call my old friend to see how he was doing,
forgetting for the moment he is dead, yet knowing it too,
and knowing I was forgetting, and knowing I knew.
Dream Fragment — January 28, 2019
[ 272 ]
Dream Fragment
Have you ever thought we might be thumbprints in the dough?
No? Because that is what I’m thinking now.
And I’m thinking how much, and how little else, I know.
Canvas 515 — January 19, 2015
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Canvas 515 — Thumbprints
When I see ignorance in a face, or anxiety, or arrogance, or fear,
I see the road that brought me here.
When I see compassion, grace, and love,
I see sweet rain on distant fields. I see where I was born.
When I see my fingers on the keys of this strange machine,
I see an entire species on the precipice of itself.
Canvas 1,132 — January 12, 2018
Less a Tightrope Walker
Less a tightrope walker or juggler, more a snowflake or butterfly.
And then, when you least expect it, a man, in a grave, at the end.
That’s when his bones dance without help from his skin.
Don’t think it sad. Be a friend. Look in.
And don’t think me mad, if that’s what I am.
Think me flower, or ball, or pin.
Think me weightless.
Or melting.
Yes. Think of me then.
Recently Banned Literature, January 12, 2017
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Canvas 1,132 — Less a Tightrope Walker
To have in mind a line and find it in a face,
the mind must trace its grace in kind and find its place in space.
Canvas 1,229 — January 5, 2019
[ 249 ]
Canvas 1,229 — A Line in Mind
On its side in a trailer at the curb, one bare Christmas tree.
Or is it a casket in a hearse, and a human tree?
The Last Day of the Year — 2018
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William Michaelian 