The old man

A January wind
Caught the old man
Clasping withered limbs
Breaking his bones
Exposing sockets
Glaring fresh scars
Over scattered remains.

©2013, Donald Harbour

The end reward

there is a stream
silent running over rocks
where moss grows

wading its icy waters
slipping on green slime
is a dilettante adventure

on the other side
lies an ancient orchard
with gnarled giants

arduous is the journey
as all of life’s journeys
the only end is hope

before I reach to pick
the fruit of my desire
the grove’s scent assails me

I can tell the pears
are rotten this year

©2012, Donald Harbour

Holiday poetic prose

As a non-hibernating human being there is a time when in my existence I lay dormant in a shadowy malaise, as it were, a condition that transcends my true nature causing me to be a grumpy misfit among sun worshipers and barbecue bimbos as I have never seen the value in frying ones epidermis to a pork rind in the infra red blast furnace of ole Sol’s rays.

My arousal arrives with each day’s sunset beginning a little earlier and with the tree leaves shuddering to fall from their perch in a frosty apoplectic form anticipating re-birthing in the coming spring with a rather unwelcome death that coats the yard by their cast off carcasses leaving spindly shadows on a rather well manicured carpet of green.

However, autumn and winter herald scrumptious tables of Thanksgiving dining with friends and family, bright multicolor lights reflected in the eyes of joyful children, and glittering Christmas trees surrounded by gayly wrapped presents which are those things that energize me from somnolence into a jolly jig dancing Fantasia footed fool, ain’t it grand.

©2012, Donald Harbour

A time to curl up

Autumn woods

Strolling down a pebble strewn path
each footstep a Rice Crispy morning,
diamond dew is fresh on the grass,
trident tips of oak tree leaves
are decorated with shining pearls,
sunlight caresses each watery crystal
gently nudging them to the ground,
the autumn air carries a heavy scent,
primal, cool, humid, earthy,
it is the aphrodisiac of nature,
exciting Gaea to birth the season
slithering creatures move slower,
pest of the air hide, finally satisfied,
the forest is yawning, desiring rest,
it’s stained glass pristine cathedral
a montage of red, yellow, purple and brown,
giving life to this wondrous symphony
it is time to reflect on the past,
a time to cloak in this quilted moment,
a time to look forward to renewing,
a time to curl up in the crib of creation.

@2012, Donald Harbour

The colors of being

I do not know when it began or when
breath gave me the French kiss of life
but, I do remember its naked entrance
awash in birthing color, red, red as blood.

Life begins with a crimson passion,
a spontaneous ignition of the soul,
a firing of the spirit’s, spirituality, an
exploding kaleidoscope of pigments.

The nurturing soil of being dusky brown,
the rich fertile nutrient of beginning, rooting
flesh to bone, skin to flesh, mind to body,
a garden of composted existence.

Knowing is a universe of eternal blue,
a velvet dark blue of limitless forever,
pulling, inviting, a challenge to humankind
to comprehend the what and why.

Opening the mind’s eye stirs awakening,
surrounded by the green of our mother,
her trees, flowers, a teeming growing bounty,
a blinding awe of her sustaining abundance.

The firmament bares burnished golden hue
the purse of eternity gathering coin,
all the things we do or do not do, the gleaming
repository of the soul’s resurrection.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Anticipation

A poem in the form of a Japanese Tanka.

Grey marbled clouds
rolling across the sky,
on the earth below
life awaits a moist kiss
from nature’s pursed lips.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Becoming one

peace has descended
settling in spring’s green grass
soft as a breeze
playful as a fat puppy
the sun casts the evening
day sizzles on the horizon
lost in a golden purple madness
night birds have awakened
aroused by settling chirps
Martins dart across the sky
late diners on mosquitoes
I cannot find another time
cannot remember a past memory
that ever cut so deeply
laying bare the souls sinew
marveling at the surrounding life
this great beauty of creation
the harmony possesses me
I become lost in its magic
bubbling over with child like wonder
bare feet rooted in the moist sod
I have become one with Nature
absorbed by its great mystery
returning at last to the soil of being
I am home in Mother Earth’s bosom.

©2012, Donald Harbour

The Archangel cometh

We own you and we will take your soul. Bet on it, buy stock.

Poets are a dime a dozen, I
cost only a penny on the cheap.
Bilbo Baggins and Robert Frost
each a copper of time pasted
upon the digital landscape of
the Internet. No written pages,
only ones and zeros defining,
recording genius, talent, moronic
diatribes, the succubus of intellect.
The decay of society in the cloud
of tomorrow. Is that your ultimate
destination, bucolic acceptance?
At what point will the reason
of the word be given over to
the Machiavellian manipulators
You sheep, you followers, naysayers,
you destroyers, you that sleep
with Eden’s snake of technology,
will kill your children, welcoming
the Archangel of Destruction,
without ever knowing you are
no longer members of humanity?

©2012, Donald Harbour

Flowers remember

I lay among the thorns of life but do not feel the pain, for the sweetness of it's beauty is the salve that blunts each stabbing prick.

The garden knows the direction!
Each morning the flowers face the east,
brandishing blossoms like out stretched arms,
praising the arrival of the sun below the trees.
The flowers know God and he, she, it,
knows them. Their fragrance the scent
of sweet creation, perfume from their souls.
Heady splashes of color shout the joy of
rootedness and purpose. While they sleep
in winter they plan and write their
canticles to silently chant them in spring.
Now I stand with them and feel the warmth
of my creator’s blessing, painting my face
with golden light, drawing me to the earth’s bosom.
How did the flowers come to remember that
which humans have so long ago forgotten?

©2012, Donald Harbour

It’s Earth Day, remember our mother, Gaea.

Odoriferous

Bradford Pear blossoms

There it is, that peculiar odor. An announcement heralding an arrival. This slap to the olfactories is a smelling salt of sweet scent mingled with decaying flesh. It proclaims spring to be sprung, buds to have blossomed, inoculating, scintillating, resonating the seasonal change. Everywhere it has laid a bland canopy of white. And, that is the only, the one and only salvation for the annual foliage of the Bradford Pear tree.

When there is passing
buzzard winds clean the bone
flowers will grow.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Haibun is a composition that combines a paragraph of prose in tangential or oblique relationship with a haiku poem. For We Write Poems prompt.