Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: poem


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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.


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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


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Things I didn’t know I loved

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.


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Upright words

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” said Charles Dickens. Actually he only wrote it. Dirk Bogarde, my favorite Sidney Carton, said it with eyes shining in the dark. Words reduced to threads at the edge of a frayed cliche. Being able to hold thoughts in my hand for a while as they dribble down the length of my fingers, to land drip sandcastle upright as words on paper. It took forever to learn, but I have no regrets. If only words could cure the world as easily as pull the wool over our eyes. If widdershins could disperse oil spills or brillig or gyre could hoist a lance to run neatly through the heart of hate. That kind of thing. Words for the worst of times.


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Insistent messenger

A mourning dove in my apple tree
looks through the window
its message meant to prod
sun shrinks as the cold returns
woods maple tops spike leafless now
bronze oaks and candle beech stand guard
water lilies sink into the pond again
a scooped out moon brings frost
bears already denned up the hill
not quite past time for seeds but hurry
or jays will bring their beaks