Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Category Archives: certainty of love


by 4 Comments

Not quite endings

The music stops and echos
shimmer then fade
our voices stilled waiting
for the flood of response
I fall into the silence
all energy given away
to singing’s singular joy

A long goodbye jumps the queue
to sudden extinction
Love lives on the mountain
ashes soaking into moss
his spirit coming back
to say that 40 years were
worth it all in all
and how are things

The chatter quieted
and in its place
a single sound takes shape
One note clearly formed
on endless breath
I find it comes from me
I had been singing all along
and never knew

_________________________________
a prompt from tonight’s writing group with Doug Anderson: endings


by 2 Comments

Stepping onto grass

A sip of camomile
to soften nerves,
a quiet moment on the porch
observing fire flies
punctuate the trees.
Travels through cloud rain,
waiting for the sun
to shiver start the day.
Mind’s eye reaching for
the girl child of my heart,
lace tokening her gaze.
Her brother
brought to sudden tears
on catching sight
of unanticipated beauty
tethered by her father’s arm.
Last moments as the impish girl
who stood upon his feet to waltz,
then stepping firmly
onto sea scent grass
to speak her promises
and dance, love wrapped
as woman on her way.

________________________________
twenty three years on, that lovely day still resonates.

BH in the field


by 1 Comment

Elegy

And with his end all lifeline letters stopped
akin to clocks hushed at a death,
leaving smothered laughter or kind words
confetti-chopped to ricochet at will

Those daily orts grown into thoughts,
inked heiroglyphs sardined with scattered
pencil nonpareils, bright chrome
yellow sheets, they will come no more

He lived for wordy news, recounted histories,
rich mirrors of our minds, but people hanging
on a vapid phone were never tolerated
much beyond a minute any day

In all of this we saw and felt the gifts his
writing brought, quiet kindness in our grasp,
connection, palatable family glue,
admonishments or clapping hands

He never did hold back bursts of rant
against extinction of a simpler life
or razing of an older barn, sunblot
politic dizziness, or inept modernity

Today we hold those pages fiercely
knowing he is gone, and reread again
to briefly feel his warmth born of quiet
brilliance, a rich legacy of love disguised

__________________________
NaPoWriMo 2017, Day 3. the prompt was to write an elegy, and a particular facet of the person or thing mourned.

one (recipe) for a good boy


by 2 Comments

one for a good boy

holding in the arms test
he found them a place for stillness
I felt his trust and knew everything

journey tolerance test
he had little for road rumblings howling all the way
I laughed at his protests and sang with him

introduction to the first dog test
she terrified him huge and dark
I smiled this would pass remembering others

favorite places test
he took her shoulderings still followed bravely
I pulled him from the squelching mud more mindful after

contemplation test
he sat by her and learned to watch the world
I heard my heart swell seeing this

first misadventure test
he thought all ice trustworthy
I stood thigh deep in frozen marsh to pull him out

listening test
he found joy in learning many things
I spoke softly so that he might hear

finding his work test
he decided it was me with slippers
I accepted his gift dancing

____________________________
Day 2 prompt was a recipe. this was a tough one to get going. it would not share itself with me yesterday. once I stepped back, like a contrary child it bounded into my brain.


by 2 Comments

Haiku for Elizabeth with notes

gift from love’s pilgrim
my words have danced in your heart
they leap free again

_____________________________________
Yesterday the Third Cousins Club met again. three cousins, Cassie, Elizabeth, and me, descended in separate lines from the same great great grandfather, knowing nothing of the others until an accidental discovery grew into a connection that has joined three family lines. Elizabeth’s sister Susan was there at the beginning with all of us, but she died this year. So Elizabeth has just made what I can only think of as a pilgrimage to the ocean places they loved together. What a brave and loving sister gift this was, saying goodbye again, ashes left to be a part of memories.

sun turtle moonstones


by 2 Comments

moonstones

countless shed
in rage and grief
for loss of life
and love’s escape
but know my friends
that tears
rejoin the earth
to fall again
as rain
and with these
moonstone drops
comes life renewed
a moment’s chance
to heal and wash
the stench of hate
into the sea
and pray
the only swords
we need are
gentle arcs
of green
sun turtle lines
of remnant tears
safe havens
for our memories

___________________________________
a poem for a day that always brings the echoes of a loving grief. I send these words to join those voices raised to shout aloud their sadness in the face of tragedy.


by Leave a comment

Haiku for a friend with notes

see each forward step
my own not for another
true gift of friendship

 

 

____________________________
The way forward for a friend sometimes seems clear to me, but not for them. The hard thing is to step back, find the wisdom to make changes in my own life, and let them work it out. They already know that I care.

Horace, black on black


by 2 Comments

Haiku for tuesday with notes

accepting the muse
black head warms my foot again
reaching for note book

 

 

 

_________________________________
Horace likes to sit under the kitchen table when I write, with his head across my foot. I had planned to write later in the day today, but clearly my muse thought otherwise.


by 2 Comments

against the grain

like clouds washing in
to butt against prevailing winds
close on the heels of rain
my path through time leaves more behind
than there are miles ahead
and I now gladly shed
the layered skins of reticence
once meekly worn, redundant chrysalides
freely spreading mind and heart
to net a cloud of lightning darters
filamented possibilities
imagining the shape and heft
of those not evidenced as yet
and make them real, ripe thoughts
such easy fruit within my reach
to smell and taste and feel
their juices staining lip and memory
the gift of years is freedom of the heart
to move the other way

__________________________
this evening, clouds coming from the east seemed to move contrary-wise on the heels of rain squalls, making me think of moving against the flow. A poem for day 7 of NaPoWriMo, and a present for my youngest sister, Julie, who understands the flow of life, and whose birthday it is both today and tomorrow, down under.


by 1 Comment

Pole Stars

Outside an open window
long bones of morning light
stretch across new green
and under petal floats
Mind’s eye leaping past
advancing spring
to waiting brown woods
Snowdrops hang, quiet white
broken only by the calls of jays
or arcing cardinal voice
I ache for home
those starker hills
and life lived on a wilder scale
With the flow of my brook’s
ambient song in counterpoint
to raven growls and beaver slaps
The shouting silence of the stars
that touch my trees
Small-hours communion with the moon
cupped softly by the dark
My homeward journey’s pull is strong
yet it will be hard to leave
a house so filled with love
and people of my bones,
Twin pole stars
anchoring the heart


by Leave a comment

the onion revealed

with all its skin removed
and moonstone lotus arms pulled back
the onion has no center
only tear provoking sharpness
seeping from its pores
but you and I have hearts
that feed our souls and break sometimes
laid bare in throes of love
or simply listening to the echoes
of a whispered thought
a memory of longing sweeping back
to fan regret at loss
we wear our years like onion skin
the proof of who we were opaque
of how we danced or soared
looked at the world from eyes that saw
time infinite us invincible
too quick to jump into the flow
of forces greater than our will
to hold them back
where war or danger
grabbed us by the throat and shook
tossing what was left aside
or living tamer slower lives
bumps and buffets taken as they came
no matter what our start
we all arrive at later’s trailhead
wondering where our eagerness and joy have fled
energies no longer at our ready beck
resignation sometimes held at bay
and yet our beating core
holds all of it on layaway
to draw on if we can
so when I lie with moonlight
shadows raked across my skin
and you reach out with forge hot hands
time falls away leaving elemental us
certain only of this moment
and its gift