Not as old as this house I am still old
wading through less certain days
and knees high quick march tears
from senses bombarded by everything
heart running to catch up
knowing not all tears are unhappy
joy and its lacewing followers
surround my memories of you
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Image Copyright © 2023 Kate Rantilla, All Rights Reserved.
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.
My woods breathe again
the monsoon world receding
summer turns for home
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
Behind the bare trees
broad strokes of platinum cloud
frost on bird feathers
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
Nights alone riding the river of our past
taking songs to bed instead of you
resigned to half the life we had
I see you there waiting for
my dreams to float the river shoals
Less of forever to go around each bend
until we say hello again, and dance
outside the time of sleep
A fresh morning breeze
black dog waits by the screen door
heat will claim the day
They clank along with me
pieces of a longish life
each note a color tone shell
for its part of the story
days or years from a to b
still singing, they diffuse slowly
sound that holds time safe
My words flow over the rocks
smooth and gentle things
when what I want them to do
is shout out loud
avoid the boulders by a hair
laughing hard
and coax some stones to spin
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The last line included at the suggestion of fellow poet Kort Fisher.
Life gallops faster as remaining days shorten and I want, I ache for what, more time? more pleasure? more laughter? more slow dances? more hardass blues?
All of it
I didn’t know I loved the spirit in soil
deep under reed marshes
connected to it through my bones
a vision of roiling life
I didn’t know I loved to sing
that song could make me cry
joy a quick moment on the backs of notes
voices together light to dark
I didn’t know that I loved sense of place
color memories until they were gone
layered goodbyes in dim sunlight
dusty motes on gray air
I didn’t know I still loved touch
thought it dried and done but not forgotten
only to find a fire so ready lit my blood sang
even as I would cry aloud
I didn’t know that I loved words
that they would fill every empty place
pull me with them words from my eyes
words from unheard thought
I didn’t know how much I loved my life
sweet along with sharp and hard
rushing in over tidal flats escaping just as fast
that I could cherish it not just live it
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This list poem came out of a short poetry workshop taught in 2015 by the poet Doug Anderson. We read Things I Didn’t Know I Loved by the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, and were prompted to write our own list poem by the same title. This is the revised version.
Life With Horace 