Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Category Archives: nature


by

Upriver

I swam once in the Thames
well away from London
almost to Oxford
a country river
the currents sluggish
the summer water warm
no eels in the mud
sun baked towels to dry off with
no whitecaps or jellyfish
no chance of sharks
everything green and civilized
Used to the toe deep cold
and hot sand
of our ocean beach
I missed the goose bumps
we wore home to lunch

Audio: Read by the author.


by

Star Map

In summer when the moon was gone
we could walk the gravel road
down to the cottage in starlight
pupils cranked wide, sure footed     
its dips and curves mapped
in our atlas of collective memory
Listening more than we spoke
to show late feeding rabbits
we meant no harm
Small pops of crunching shale
telltales of our soft passage
to great horned owls and foxes
All of us on high alert
for ambling skunks
hunting grubs in upturned moss
Not knowing then
those moonless descents
would be the safest dark
we would ever know


Audio: Read by the author.


by

When the fog rolled in

Every time I came back
it was to stand surrounded
by the square front hall
oak and lemon smelling

Metal shaded lamps
to draw the eye at night
Orange tiger lilies bracketing
moss glazed fire place tiles

The Parlor door open
direct afternoon light
chased by muffled gray
on humid summer days

The Green Painting waiting
open armed on the far wall
above a crack lacquered
roll top desk

It always took me further
into its own dream world
of fog, a stream dividing
the marsh edge to edge

The blackened green
of pine and cypress arms
rooted in celadon grass
no bump elbowed woods

The artist had watched
smiling when my grandmother
first saw the canvas and
took it wet from the easel

Thanks tossed back
she walked out the door
into the mist blocked morning
off home to hang it for me


by

The Angle of Later Light

It’s my life up to now
with its camp follower memories
thirsty for acknowledgement
wanting to do their chorus line kicks
before time runs out
senses ambushed by everything

It does not take much does it                                    
a lemon hiding its sharp tongue
in a cheerful skin but once married
to sugar or butter is a
blanket of surprises

A remembered tomato eaten
seconds off the vine
warm in the hot sun
Socks pulled onto cold feet
the quick bliss of warmth
a soft second skin

The cut and scrape of a
hand turned can opener
to reveal humble tuna
The deep heart of color
in an emerald

Honey carrying its own
geography to the tongue
A window open to the
dense night of a city summer                                    
and a mockingbird sings
near the fountain steps
I imagine it a nightingale

Movies in childhood
red and gold palaces of escape
sitting in the dark
impatient for the approaching
light and color and sound
calling from the screen

The angle of later light
the heart’s golden hour
slowly pressed into
star filled night

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Image copyright © 2023 Kate Rantilla, All Rights Reserved.


by

Heron’s Feet

Bogs and wetlands are old familiars
plant rot water brown as tea
suck mouthed mud waiting for the careless
but only an oddity where the snappers live
if you know where to put your feet
and they will, these places
send energy snaking through the blood
to shoot sparklers from your fingers
and run circles around
your soul’s shoulders
as you wait for the heron
to drop down
from its nest
to fish


by

Five minutes

Back in the woods
up the road past
the old town reservoir
where chain links
protect unused water
and brilliant leaves
in the way of
swamp maples

Farther in
the pace of fall slows
to less flashy spots
of orange and red
dropped deep into
reluctant green

Empty spaces
once the home
of many trees
have begun to fill in

Mindful of the light
dipping toward hunters hour
we turn for home
the cinnamon ferns
wear beige now
feather tips point along
the angle of fall sun