Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: light


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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

______________________________
Day 26. A call and response poem.


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pole stars

outside an open window
long slanting bones of morning light
stretch out across new green
and under petal floats
my mind’s eye leaping past
advancing spring
to still brown woods
snowdrops hanging white in quiet
broken only by the calls of jays
or arcing cardinal voice
I ache for home
those starker hills
and life lived on a wilder scale
with brook flow ambient song
in counterpoint
to raven growls and beaver slaps,
the shouting silence of the stars
that touch my trees
small-hours communion with the moon
cupped softly by the dark,
my homeward journey’s pull is strong
yet it will still be hard to leave
a house so filled with love
and people of my bones,
twin pole stars
anchoring the heart

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I love and miss my adult children and their respective clans and look forward to the chance to share their lives. Yet after a day or two the siren call of home begins its chant, and I am torn, no less grateful for these gifts.


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two days on

this morning life rose earlier
by minutes that felt wider
accordioning out the day,
winter’s pearl blue light
cut by blades of gold
cast from the ridge
revealed the snow well broken in,
squirrel byways clearly marked
seed leavings on white crests,
starter crystal stalactites
lipped from the roof,
evidence of romping dogs
mouse tracks
and my own red squirrel visitor
in a quiet moment

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immediate snow is always special, but some time out from its fall the evidence of life outside the house reveals itself.


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opaque dawn

light lies flat and gray behind my pines
no emerging blue with morning star
nor sailing clouds with rosy blotted core
a morning to rejoice because it’s mine
and I am able to give voice

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a shortling gift from an early morning, with gratitude for another day.


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Waiting for the hunter

Many days since I have seen a moon
both night and dawn obscured by cloud or rain.
Days of leached out richness
lacking diamond clustered white,
creep fingered winter reaching out
to shackle and restrain my thoughts
till sun regains the upper hand,
tossing me the keys that come with
fledgling green and tender smells of earth
(around an oxbow bend of time and out of sight).
Tonight we have thick, clotted blots of snow,
flake armies blanketing the world, scouting
morning’s aftermath of shapes standing bright
against fresh blue. A constant roar
of moving trees, teeth of the north wind auto harp.
Deep ink heaven once again blown clean,
Diana’s slivered waxing moon
emcees emerging stars, until he comes.
A reaching leap of arms and sword and strength,
his belt the perfect anchor for my eyes,
standing watch, protector of the frozen skies.

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I look for Orion each winter, knowing he stands watch over our frozen nights.


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looking through

the apple tree has given up its leaves
sightlines to the treescape skyline
of the mountain ridge are visible again
skeleton beauty skirting stripped down
lilac oak and beech, embracing stolid
pine arms, needles feathering
this morning’s straggler sun
a wedge of brown and gray and light
this small world peaceful
waiting for the snow

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this is one of those mornings when the contrast between the world outside my kitchen window and places of violence and sorrow is very stark. I am grateful for this peace, even as I mourn another shattered night and pray for France.


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dawn reflected

unaccustomed light beams up from my small pond
a gift I grudge our downstream beaver cadre,
shermanesque repurposers of woods and mud
whose path had thinned the eastern trees
this morning’s sight was not the sliver moon
pendant under brilliant venus
that had called to me in bed
but dawn with spikes of leafless trees
in shadowed counterpoint

the possibility of future treats looms large
even as my mind resists this change
reflected moons and shooting stars
crusted ice or waves of snow
morse code tracks from there to here
so as I fight to deconstruct
the engineering feat that threatens
to engulf beloved trees
I whisper thanks for fallout gifts
and pray that what comes next is peace

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the back boundary of my land is a named brook, with a small seasonal pondlet cum mudhole, which was quickly becoming a full on pond by the time I realized what was happening at the end of this summer. beavers are amazing engineers, cross layering branches and twigs to make their dams, and excavating existing banks for mud to wall new water in. taking all this down is not easy, and I was quite sad about having to do it, until I discovered that there was no lodge out back but only “land grooming” for future expansion. I suspect this is merely the latest skirmish between the beavers and the owners of this house since it was built in 1796.


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warrior (for the light)

fist raised to the sun
in soft salute,
a signal presence
with intent to grow,
unfold from chrysalis
to full formed frond,
radiating energy
at every bladed tip,
proof that light
will foster growth,
atoms racing out,
stronger when they
touch and ping
their fellows,
moving, nurtured
on the journey
of creation

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for The Open Group at Bedlam Farm and for Jon Katz who saw the light, and told us it existed.


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The child within

She calls me now where once she hid frozen,
afraid of dark paned windows,
conjured menace staring blankly in.

I first returned to grasp at shards of understanding
and found instead a small hand needing mine,
we stood together, unafraid.

There was a magma shift, the hard and inky dark
shape-changed by love’s reagent into brightness,
the bond of trust rewarding us with grace.

 


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catching the light

however it comes
we want it all, that light,
bright understanding
to open eyes,
illuminate and warm
our world, and free us,
so we think.

on light filled, sunny days
our spirits lift and soar
on updrafts,
hawklike, hunting
promise in those beams,
the source of what
is possible.

but with no sun and open sky
do we still sense
the light there for us
brought in different form?
that it still shines,
its power now diffuse
but no less ours,
and can we grasp
with raptor talons
all the glimmers due us?

much harder then
to have to work
for something often
free of effort, easy
to absorb, enjoy,
yet if we persevere
there is reward,
brilliance, no less a gift
for being indirect.

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this ornament was a gift brought by my sister from New Zealand. it always catches light.