Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: words


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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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Until then

There may still be
wind, that has not kissed
my face

Or light on vernal
water, not seen through
my lens

Or singing, that has
yet to hum along
my bones

Or time with friends, dancing
in green waves, sand on
my feet

Or words to share, flowing
from the mouth of
my heart

But, there was always love, with
you, so if I skip the rest
to waltz out in your arms,

It will be enough to
know these gifts waited
with me, just in case.

 

 


Audio: Read by the author.

 

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A birthday poem for Mike


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Haiku for Elizabeth with notes

gift from love’s pilgrim
my words have danced in your heart
they leap free again

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Yesterday the Third Cousins Club met again. three cousins, Cassie, Elizabeth, and me, descended in separate lines from the same great great grandfather, knowing nothing of the others until an accidental discovery grew into a connection that has joined three family lines. Elizabeth’s sister Susan was there at the beginning with all of us, but she died this year. So Elizabeth has just made what I can only think of as a pilgrimage to the ocean places they loved together. What a brave and loving sister gift this was, saying goodbye again, ashes left to be a part of memories.


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A line borrowed

For years every morning I drank
long drafts of the world,
without knowing
that words lay in wait
to flash like sunbeams
unable to dance quietly
until the moment of ambush.

For years I would tuck away
throat caught beauty
in dull green strong boxes,
to sit on bare wood shelves
until I could not wait
another moment of another minute
to feel and see again.

For years words found me,
some refused to leave,
sticky stubborn things,
and now, well now I recognize
them as old friends that held the dam,
until one day they stepped aside
to release the flood
as I surrendered.

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Day 25 part 2. The NaPoWriMo prompt was to borrow the first line of a favorite poem, and use it as a jumping off point for a new poem. I chose the first line of Mary OLiver’s Mornings at Blackwater.