Notebook - An Imperfection, More or Less

Notebook
Listening to myself sing softly early this morning while making my mother a sandwich on the assumption that she’ll eventually awaken, rise from bed, and require lunch, I was struck by how little I’ve changed since I wandered alone on our farm as a kid. I sang to myself then, I sing to myself now, and I’m as wide-eyed, earnest, and melancholy a fool as I ever was, and every bit as impractical. I must confess, I felt very much like crying, which I actually did do when I collapsed into bed last night after watching Little Women with my mother. Although she was unable to follow everything in the movie, Mom was deeply touched by the heartbreaking death of one of the four March girls, who had contracted scarlet fever earlier in the story. I cried for a number of reasons. I cried because the movie was sad. I cried because Mom is eighty-five and I witness daily her diminished mental and physical condition and its steady erosion. I cried because I will likely be at her side when she dies. I cried because I remember so distinctly the dying moments of my father, and of my wife’s mother. I cried because I was exhausted, and because night was an ocean tugging mercifully at my limbs. I might even have cried because I felt sorry for myself. But I fell asleep before the matter was settled, and I don’t really care to pursue it now. After all, what’s another imperfection, more or less? In any case, I would much rather ponder images like these: A man singing into the telephone for his dying father two thousand miles away. A starving poet awakens to find his poems have turned into bread, but he cannot bear to eat them.	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts
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