Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Category Archives: life up here


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Mother Nature’s version of make up sex

It’s safe to say we all had a crappy, long, drawn out winter, weather-wise. So imagine my surprise that when the new season finally arrived, it wasn’t one of those small and hasty slots wedged in between freezing and roasting.

Up here at the foot of Monadnock there has been a delicate progression, a slow introduction of green at our feet, buds ripening, canada mayflowers carpeting our path through the woods.

Fiddleheads thrusting up and unfurling, daffies and tulips bringing the first color in months.

Daylily leaves are curving gently, rambling roses sending out new shoots, flower beds repopulating. The rhubarb bed is lush. The weeping cherry and plum tree are full of color. I didn’t know before moving here that plum blossoms smell, well, plummy, but they most certainly do.

The apple tree outside our kitchen door is now in flower, and the lilacs have just emerged.

Many years this all happens like a collapsing telescope, but not right now. The temperature has crept slowly, slowly upwards. What a gift.

Added to all this largesse there are the new birds. At least, new to this place since I’ve been here.

Indigo Buntings, Pine Grosbeaks and Baltimore Orioles have joined the line-up this year. Wonderful flashes of color, especially the Indigo Buntings.

We live at the junction of piney woods, the mountain’s lower reach, the Fassett Brook delta, and Perkins Pond, so we see some nice birds year round. Lots of Ravens. Bears too.

The slate colored juncoes and cowbirds have moved north for the summer.

The usual suspects have all turned up to join the winter jays, woodpeckers, mourning doves, titmice and chickadees — American Goldfinches, Purple Finches, Rose Breasted Grosbeaks, 6-plus varieties of sparrows, Catbirds, Ruby Throated Hummingbirds, Bluebirds, Red Wing Blackbirds, Tricolor Blackbirds and Evening Grosbeaks. Grackles too.

Great blue herons cruise by, with their unmistakable wing beat and are all over the wetlands. Thrushes are singing in the woods at twilight.

The butterflies and moths are making their entrance too.

So I’m feeling pretty flush right now. Livened and renewed by MN’s wonderful Spring, after the fight this winter proved to be, and grateful, definitely.


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the way light plays

there is wind this morning,
backed by clear bright light,
just enough to move
the clouds I see
along the mountain arm.
they are solid burghers,
nothing flimsy, without
wings or tails in flight
yet they are bordered brilliantly,
as though the light is urging them
to weightlessness and speed,
to dance across the day
and play there with the sun


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riding earth

the dogs and I emerge
and head for freedom
tunneled through our woods,
a path of rich delights,
the sights and smells of life
lived on another scale,
returning home
renewed

today I feel connected
beyond my simple paradise,
as this glorious ship
sails through
the light and dark of space
as we live on her, taking
more than giving, plucking
fruits that may not
always grow again

and though some care,
the press of each day’s life
forces most to singular survival
not sure, or even caring
that the aggregated slag
of heedless use
will surely leach away
her life blood
and then ours

unless we love
our mother, steadfast
and protect her still rich bounty
simply for the joy
it brings us now
we will surely have denied
the birthright of
those loved ones
not yet born

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I have always loved the connectedness I feel on earth day. For Day 22 of NaPoWriMo 2014.


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The Raid

We think she ambled up our hill
and grabbed the seed bin
left outside our door
then took her prize down to
the stream-cut woods
behind the house to feast
Our feeders are aswarm again
returning snowbirds and
winter stalwarts busy feeding
none of whom would care she came
unless denied their food
But the squirrels and I are glad
that she was choosy in her way
Do you think if I asked nicely
she would return my scoop?


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in flux

great movement has begun once more
with snow’s retreat into the ground
and sun’s advance up to its peak

we look out into woods or over lawns
and see a constant ebb and flow
of birds now grounded, searching food

the leavened earth is pushing up
its sleepy winter denizens in search of warmth
to meet bright eyes and hungry beaks

our feathered corps is swelling once again,
as winter stalwarts joined by brighter guests
begin to dance the minuet of spring

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poem © 2014 KH Rantilla. all rights reserved.


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anticipation

despite the two-step
back and forth
of sun and snow,
there is new growth
emerging from
the silver painted trees
that greeted me
this morning

the promised gifts
of warmth and green
are on approach,
not yet in sight
though moving closer,
not quite frigate bird
in endless motion,
they are more subtle
in descent

spring’s silent feet
are passing by
the slowing pace of winter
in its wanton marathon,
not in a sprint,
but sidling steps
that lull the beast,
so grass will grow
for us to dance upon
and sing the notes
of rising life again

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will she won’t she? mother nature, that is.


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Imagining dragonflies

Walking under mid-March flying clouds,
snow still layered tightly on this wetland road,
there are soft murmurs, water running under ice,
the flow from unseen melt is fleeing winter.
A half-warm sun and gusting wind of early spring
cannot erase the memory of heat and fecund life,
riches here to be regained at nature’s pace, not mine.
The dogs and I tramp to the dam and back,
and dream of summer pleasures looming large,
imagining the dragonflies.

__________________________________
On yesterday’s wetland walk my mind kept overlaying summer on what I was seeing.


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sure signs despite appearances

We all know what yesterday was, and for most of us in the upper tiers of North America it was just a date.

But, there have been signs. More than one. Different signs, unexpected and joyous. Spring is en route here. Emerging at glacial pace after a winter that brought stoic New Hampshire yankees to the point of actual complaint.

The turkey buzzards are back. Really turkey vultures, but down in DC they were buzzards. I like that better. Circling singly and in whirling vortexes.

I’ve heard red wing blackbirds twice, once in my own yard.

Speaking of which, it is beginning to show mud. Longing for mud season. Just this year, mind you.

Bird song in the early morning is loud, and full and sweet, their spring calls.

There is more flowing water than ice or snow on our own Fassett Brook. The dark shape of the Brook is emerging from the snow in the woods behind us.

On a walk yesterday there was a bug creeping across the snow in front of me, when I happened to glance down. No idea what it was. Small and spindly, it crept along, and I imagined it muttering to itself about the snow.

And last of all, somewhat incongruous to me, I saw a male ring necked pheasant. First sighting up here for me ever. Coming home on Mountain Road, on the last climb up before the Old Toll Road trail. On the side of the road, looking a bit confused about getting back up the bank, to safety. Hope it didn’t become Creamed Pheasant, if you get my drift. It’s a busy road.

It’s definitely coming. Just very very slowly.