Life With Horace

poetry & essays


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Flat light early

Some mornings present themselves
before my second eye opens,
no warmth, flat light,
featureless gray untrimmed.
Tight woven canvas hangs
edge to edge at the top
of the sky, and the living world
makes a new plan,
carrying on oblivious.
My patient dogs don’t
care a fig about the sun,
arriving bedside to present
mouth-damp slippers,
and we go out
to open up the day.


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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.


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dreams

what part of us
creates a dream,
where thought and memory
interweave to speak
about the day now done
and point to work ahead?
perhaps the spirit snatches
piecemeal chunks of thought
and welds them into
(technicolor) sequence,
for decoding by the heart,
still echoing the joy or fear
or puzzled voice
that sat upon our sleep,
until we wake,
relieved to know it
as unreal, or sad to leave
an ecstasy behind

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my dreams are always vivid, and in color. for me half the “fun” of dreams is puzzling out their origins on waking up.