Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Category Archives: nature


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Morning as palindrome

As words begin their dance
glancing out at spring
sitting down at last to write
confident of its receipt
asking for serenity
another day a perfect gift
reflecting and give thanks
I close my eyes to sip
hand cupping warmth
coffee and the ritual of smell
checking lilacs apple buds
birds scatter at the noise
opening the outer door
woods featureless and flat
moving softly hug the quiet
slightly damp delight
one slipper at a time
morning work for dogs
stretch sloughing sleep’s cement
a feather shawl to float away
night journey remnants linger
as clouds replace the sun
light diffuse and gray
dog nose to tail against my arm
first awareness as I wake
a dream departs

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Day 28. I loved writing this. The prompt was for an event or story in reverse.

squirrel pantry


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Haiku for wednesday with notes

red squirrel leaping
apple held fast in its mouth
single thought is food

 

 

 

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Day 27. An encounter with a determined little red squirrel. I was outside eating a green apple. The squirrel saw me; I waved at him, apple in hand, then tossed it, almost eaten, on the grass near a rhododendron. Running around the back of the bush the squirrel emerged at the front, snatching the apple and ran up a spruce tree with it. Came back down a minute or two later. Looking for the nest I imagined to be in the tree, I came upon the squirrel’s pantry. The apple sat on one of the branches.


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witness

morning light slants through spring woods
and the grass grows green again

three blue bags of roadside trash
and the grass grows green again

air is soft at dark’s approach
and the grass grows green again

screams of trees ripped from the earth
and the grass grows green again

early birdsong noisy joy
and the grass grows green again

news of rising hate brings dread
and the grass grows green again

summer stars the hunter gone
and the grass grows green again

prayers whispered for the world
and the grass grows green again

truth is not a skin we shed
and the grass grows green again

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Day 26. A call and response poem.


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night lit

my woods are hung
with lamp lit moonlight
shallow beaver wash
turned into opal pools
picked out by
beams that launched
diffused through
vapor rings we know
are ice but touch
us softly

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Day 22. We have just had a full moon, fitting for the week of Earth Day.


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following awareness

coming up the hill
toward my kitchen door
on greening grass
almost tintless
in the growing dark
I chase my shadow
in moonlight
just strong enough
to make me glad
it is not chasing me

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Day 19. A shortling about coming home in fading light and a risen moon.


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haiku for nearly

each day brings more green
apple tree buds grow fatter
the bear is nearby

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Day 12. each day brings us closer to an explosion of green. there are five bears up on the mountain flanks behind Bear Farm. they tend to visit this time of year.


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Golden Hour

Consider the lilies Kim,
in the garden behind the moon.
Enchanted place
of skylines and horizons
outside our house of light.
Drifts of common birds
skim the river flow,
returning north
from life in mexico.
Following the imprint maps
of Prester John perhaps.
Light dimming,
the day’s play over,
our precious fairy book in hand
we turn for home.
The song of hiawatha
echoing like fog
upon the land.

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day 10. a book spine poem, of twelve titles, with my own words the glue.