Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Category Archives: nature


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where it lands

precious drops of rain
rest in a scoop,
their surface
flinging hints of
life collected there
back to observant eyes,
their mass a seamless joining.

there is no certainty
of friendship as we meet,
no formula to join
both like and opposite
to make a whole.

recognition, kindred
souls, kindness
melding without seam,
like bits of nurture
from the sky,
these form a precious bond,
only if we allow ourselves
a look, a breath,
and see its landing place

___________________________________
friendship often seems a purely random thing, but it is necessary to be open to it, wherever it is found. sometimes it presents itself smack in our face, not to be ignored. this poem is for two dear friends I have known for but a year and yet forever, both Deborahs, who celebrate their birthdays this month.


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light at an angle

it is a gift I take for granted
with no remorse or hesitation,
as it is given freely
to any open eye.
angled early light,
shadows cast ahead of its arrival,
backlighting leaves and shapes,
opaque and glowing
slanted blades cut through
the woods filled up with morning haze
left over from a night of rain,
all seen in passing
on a backwoods shortcut road,
chosen not for haste but beauty,
and the joy I feel
when passing by

________________________________
I am a light addict. once I learned to see light, not just crave it, my view of the world changed forever. for Jon Katz as he heals. his vision has opened many eyes.


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walking in dew

there it is
outside the door,
in the grass,
drops and spangles
waiting
for unsuspecting toes
to wander through

once I would have
gone around
or though dark spaces
to avoid it
and the sand
it would attract
like limpets,
gritty, stubborn

but not this time,
when my
allotted moments
will surely
tumble through
the hours,
grain by grain,
knowing I will sit,
away from sunlight,
without breezes,
birdsong, sweetness
from a tree in blossom,
pesky gnats, a sighting
of a passing fox,
the melody of water
over stone

today I choose
the path through dew
and will not waste
whatever small,
but precious
sensate gifts
an unseen hand
puts in my way

_______________________
this has the benefit of being true, as my southern grandmother used to say, in that I did choose to walk through the dew this morning, only to get to work and realize that I’d had a major brain fart, and was two hours early. yes. sigh. after running a couple of errands (where I did see a fox in my bank’s parking lot), I spent a blissful hour beside Nubanusit Brook, in “downtown” Peterborough, on a granite bench. near the perfume-rich tree in the photo. writing.


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brilliance

thank you
for another day
and this clear morning,
sky scrubbed clean
by weeks of rain
and teasing clouds
that sometimes gave
a glimpse ahead, with
cores of incandescence
thickly edged in gray

thank you
for rays that stream
between the curves and arms
of freshly leafed-out trees,
silhouettes of feeding grackles
dark against a row of lilacs,
backlit foxglove petals
rich with sun
to stun my eyes

thank you
for this early clarity
to show my day direction,
light so brilliant
it almost bursts
my soul

___________________________
yesterday morning’s light was extraordinary.


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green water

sun rich light, through
leaves above this brook,
drops glowing green
into the water
moving surely
through my woods

nothing murky,
this is crystal
over pebbled granite,
drawing with it
memory and flavors
held by silt
and wood orts, shed
by gently rotting windfalls

the water of this moment
leaves us, on its way
to pond, then stream and river
with its story, bringing news
of seasons past
and momentary glories
as it joins
the greater flow

________________________________
I first noticed the green water on Fassett Brook last summer, its return has been very welcome


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resurfacing

at some point in the spring
with final farewells said,
the forest floor,
so visible all winter,
stuck with upright trunks
and fallen wood
against the snow
or rich red-brown,
retreats awhile
to steep its humus brew

and with the first
green carpet runners
stretched out by a path
or rolled along a stream,
the leaves emerge
in verdant tonal steps
from brown to red
to fresh pastel
and map the world beneath
with sun and shade

while at the very top,
among the branching crowns
a child’s delight returns,
remembered shapes or faces
in the trees, glimpsed
from a bedtime pillow,
boon companions
for another summer

_______________________________________
With winter ebbing very slowly this year, the woods floor began to look quite different as the angle of the sun changed. It was marvelous to see it in this new light, and I realized that I’d miss it with the advent of true spring. I’ve always found shapes of animals or objects or more often, faces, in the leaves and branches of summer, yet another reason I love having a window by my bed.


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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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warmth

there are
bright flowers here,
blooms that seek the sun
not with the urgency I feel
after an eastern winter,
but with an easy thrust
and surfer’s nonchalance


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note: the profusion of blooming things & colors on Alameda is almost overwhelming. for Day 27 of NaPoWriMo 2014.

poem & photo copyright © 2014 KH Rantilla.


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clouds observed

at three miles up
ahead of our approach
clouds lie below
in lakes and ponds,
captive in still water
then morph to rippled
mercury from overhead

at four miles up
there is a gathering
of shapes and streaks
that overlay
emerging spring
and new sown crops
in game board green
and brown

at five miles up
the cotton candy skeins
and contrails loop
their downy shards,
above a layer
of pillowed white

at six miles up
we climb to leave
some windy bumps
from storms well masked
by gray, swept into
comb tracked dips

at seven miles up
there is a view of
earth again, at dusk,
our flight path is a
well lit layer.
we chase the sun
and distant clouds
between the deep blue
dome of space above
and purpling land below

_________________________
I wondered if a poem would come on this flight. it did. For day 24 of NaPoWrimo 2014