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 old man
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Tag Archives: trees
Flowers need a promise
Diana Fritillary butterfly on Mike Harbour’s Zennias.
As flickering bits of confetti,
torn paper cast they float
attaching to flowers and trees.
Flashes of sparkling color,
iridescent hues of the rainbow
trace these aerial spindly creatures.
The trees are telling nature
to get ready for the season’s child
a capricious snowy headed cherub.
Yet here are the last hangers-on,
pausing to pose for a picture
then gliding away to another petal.
Do they smell the air as I,
a mosaic breath of warmth, chill,
blended with damp dead leaves, and musk.
Rest arises from the earth
pushing furry babes to deep burrows,
proclaiming sleep will save you.
Gray has muted the sun’s light,
scudding clouds have dismissed it
they forage to drop their burden.
I wonder why the butterflies linger
defying the moment to drink the last nectar,
fall is waiting with its frosty wings.
Maybe it is because only their kiss
can comfort summer’s passing flowers
to promise resurrection in the spring.
©2012, Donald Harbour
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.
Bye bye babies
Bye, bye babies.
A spindly creature occupies the yard,
filled with notations of red, perched
as pompous breasted birds wanting to fly,
she cannot let them for it is not time,
this pregnant apparition clings to them,
her holy crown of forest green shimmering,
soon she will move giving elemental birth,
such as has been done for as long as memory,
youth will not know her season long courage,
nor appreciate this fruitful fulfillment,
once there is release from her womb,
there will come a time of rest for her,
waiting for the returning honey maker,
there to impregnate her blossoms of love,
giving her a reason to live and produce again.
©2012, Donald Harbour
Winter change
Ahh, yes! So there you are. I see you snow.
The gathering voice of old man winter,
summoned the icy north-wind to blow.
Gently shaking, each oak limb trembles,
scattering a mosaic color carpet below.
The leaves a membrane for the season,
left over from the year’s autumn show.
Now nature is snug beneath its blanket,
Awaiting December’s first quiet snow.
©2011, Donald Harbour
A new dawn
Dawn rises behind beech trees in November.
In the fall crispness of early morning,
As the frost grew on the wilted grass,
One could hear daylight’s gentle whisper,
The song of the night as it passed.
Below a tree line of leaf bare branches,
Through the meadow and foggy glen,
The sun’s first rays touched tall beeches,
Warming forest creatures and blood of men.
The cock had spoken in a plaintive cry,
Calling the day from its foundling burrow,
Casting its suspicious rooster red-eye,
The beginning of yesterday’s tomorrow.
Birds fluffed feathers against the chill,
Their chirps a greeting to one another,
As on the top of a distant silhouetted hill,
Flowers peeped from beneath earth’s cover.
The heart is filled with an ancient desire,
To join in this wondrous jubilant chorus,
To stoke life’s primitive cooking fire,
From a time once remembered as glorious.
Buried there with in my quaking soul,
Where memory waits in a secret place,
I find an outward drift toward the light,
Absorbing its gracious gift upon my face.
This cherished experience of the ages,
A thanksgiving for those past and gone,
Yet there before me it is held in wonder,
As was the earth’s first blessed golden dawn.
©2011, Donald Harbour
The aftermath of ripe flesh
The season has turned, ripening fruit in the trees.
That old persimmon in the far corner of the field
is now orange with pregnancy. The Waxwings
have found it, attacking the succulent gift. Loud
cries scream through the air, seeds and ripe flesh
rain down, as the aftermath of a mad bomber’s blasphemy.
©2011, Donald Harbour
Life will continue renewed
The wind rustles the branches,
bones of trees with dying leaves,
the rattle is a cacophony of color,
gold, amber, orange, purple and red,
dancing, gleefully screaming a farewell,
holding as long as possible to the bough.
The music of fall sighs and whispers
across the meadow of brown grasses.
There is peace in the melody,
gently grating away the summer dust,
turning back the covers to an autumn bed.
A winter wisp of mare tails in the sky,
with frosty lips, North announces its coming.
Each breath a chilling knife,
carving away the husk of the past,
sculpting the delivery of a new year.
It is enchanting, a marvelous display,
a gift of reassurance that life
will continue renewed, refreshed,
nurtured by the promise of time and,
the earths fragile balance with nature.
Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour
