Life With Horace

poetry & essays


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sideways view

I can see you, all of you
from where I sit
a few thousand miles
up or out, take your pick
your lives are match flares
as we pass away from light
small bursts of color
flaming out, why green
or red or blue tonight?
my whims connect the dots
entertaining tales that may be
lies or just bad guesses
we know you watch us, singing
songs and writing maudlin verse
to our cold rocks and shifting shape
light breathed in and out to wax and wane
you could not know that we are joined
silly schizoid world, for you
it’s either his billboard smile
oddly neutered, hardly male
or country place of, me
who lives to hunt, a
woman with a wicked bow
one would never see us as
a pair much less coupled by
love up on our pockmarked
fluorescent lighted sphere
sling shot surfing
to the beat of star pulsed
fragments of forgotten gravities
we have a running bet to see
which way you leap as
we sail by silvering the clouds
our tote board running neck and neck
for half a million years

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Doug Anderson’s weekly writing workshop has us all digging deep, and laughing a lot. the prompt: a myth from other lips.

pond below the mountain


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A haiku for place with notes

up the dipping road
mountain arm is bear’s shoulder
my home lies below

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Multiple joys of September, cloud fingers dip into mountain creases, swamp maples step forward, my pine flags flying, one more trip around the sun complete


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foreglow

the old moon sliver
hangs branch framed
in white pine pins
and looking out to scout the day
I know the birds will fly in soon
to perch and wait
for signals from some
fulcrum’s tip
then swoop to take their food
but now there is no color
in the rising sky
the light shape cold
and wrong
time almost shrunk
and hope waned with it
until a shoulder glance behind
reveals a spreading rose
across the pond and to the west
a foreglow gift of elder mornings
stoking up the sky


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For the taking

Perhaps the stars hold memories,
diamond pinholes punched in winter black,
life stretched across infinity, expanding
overhead, even as my focus
might be squeezing in and
only looking back, no counterweight
to shrinking time.
Well nuts to that, I’ll take
the milky way with thanks,
refusing blinkered days
or thoughts, and will not shut
all possibility away.
This heart and soul are
slated to remain
open for business
indefinitely.


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Longing for blue

Longing for blue
for the swell of
waves at noon
wind changing
light flaking
on their crests

Lunch at a glass table
over hot flagstones
flesh still warming
we rode ice sharp water
round the whirlpool’s
seaweed walls

Wine in the blood
languid tune in my bones
we sit  shoulders touching
shaded corners
of a sea green room
calling


Audio: Read by the author.


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The Night Ship

There are times the moon
invades my room,
as opal fingered fog
touching eyes and skin.
And as the night sets sail
around me into sleep
I sense joyous dreams
that dance just out of reach,
or sober trailers on the fringe.
Unwelcome memories to push away
tear welded flashes
from the day just lived, but
not now not yet, as
life’s flow starts
to telescope.
Slow, sinuous, twisting
to its vanishing point.
Each night explodes with color
and a shadow life
of longing,
whose breadcrumb bursts
stay with me
as the sun returns,
in counterpoint
to unquiet rest.


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Over The Hills

In and out of light, driving
on a road into the hills.
To the left, a wall of rock
with innards blown away
to upright face. Brief travel
with a hawk. Its shadow leaps
onto the road, then
passes over me, and for a flash
I follow him, to fly out
over still-leafed rising shapes,
light-footed mist escaping
from their folds, bits of thought
deposited by rain, caught on
the arms of trees. Memory tucked into
shadow, waiting for the sun
to lift it clear and dance again.


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long shadow morning

the day starts clear
and weather sits the fence
undecided voter between
sultry and first frost
the hummingbirds have gone
and small flocks pulse
from ground to tree to air
some landing in the shelter
of my apple tree
across the road bright reds
appear to punctuate
short timer green
the usual pangs are there
as warmth and light
begin to turn away
but less robust somehow
each summer moment’s heat
soaked into bone and soul
defense against regret

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for me seasonal change has always been about being observant, and the aggregation of small events. september has a clear, long slanting light. my favorite month.


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Haiku for a kiss with notes

gold eye of the sun
reaches over mountain arm
gentle morning touch

_______________________

The position of the sun in late August here makes sunrise a delicate process. You see, the sun has already “risen” by the time it comes to Bear Farm. We are tucked into one of the mountain’s arms and the first sunlight edges leaves and needles of the tree crowns. gently.