I’m crowing for you

Morning is prying at my eyelids,
a nagging beggar demanding my attention.
It’s begging bowl, gray clouds scudding,
held in the palm of a chilly autumn wind,
the rim loudly banging on the front door.
Somewhere a rooster has offered a raspy croak,
a half hearted frosted cockle-doodle-do,
not a pleasant outlook for dawn’s events.
You are buried in the down and cotton covers,
a brick wall plastered with blankets.
I feeling a prospective male conjugal urge,
The rooster rules the rooster’s, roust.
There is a barnyard hierarchy, pecking order,
one’s order deduced by the clucking hens.
The mares nips chasing the stud away.
Sows nudge the boar from the trough.
The bull levies his interest subtly,
modulated to the cows seasonal expectation.
You are not that tolerant, judgmental,
you are a woman ruled by the unknown.
I, a furnace of heat, you a chasm of ice,
would that you could thaw, melt into me,
then, awaken to my, full throated cockle-doodle-do.

©2020, Donald Harbour

Time and old dogs

In the yard under a majestic poplar tree is an old hound,
The  tree has known him since he was a pup,
Its roots having grown around his favorite spot.
He slumbers, a reposed puddle of black and tan,
Ears marked with nicks, pieces missing,
His gray muzzle a scarred testament to his years.
He does not know time as we do, he knows seasons.
When the fall air turns crisp he acknowledges it,
Rheumy eyes peering at the woods around the house.
There is movement, scent in the air calling him.
Though instincts overcome his painful indolence,
He is no longer able to break brush on the hunt.
Once his strong voice told game he was on their trail,
Now, only a whispered rasp announces his wakefulness.
He believes he is still that force of nature and he speaks to it.
When the stars are spread like diamonds on black velvet,
On clear full moon nights, golden light fills his soul.
With nose pointed skyward he stands before heavens altar,
Howling a mournful comment for times lost, memories regained,
The lament a tribute to his cascading dreams of the past.
He is close to his time for his forever long last hunt.
He doesn’t know that he will be missed, hearts broken,
Those that know him will be burdened with that sadness,
Remembrance of a life well lived, the passing of time and old dogs.

©2019, Donald Harbour

Simba

Watch carefully the path you casually tread,
for silently, I am intently watching you,
each step you take heard, and noted.

You may hide in a rustling grove of trees
however that will do no good for you,
nor will the gently waving grass hide you.

There is no help to call, no savior,
to rise up and thwart my advance,
there is only you and I, soon to be one.

That tawny ripple in the midday sunlight,
it is I devouring the seconds and minutes
until our journey meets in the dust of today.

You should know I have waited for you,
it is on the gentle breeze your musk rode,
a tingling arousal of my senses announced you.

Do not fear me, give in to this chance moment,
opportunity made us companions for our dalliance,
desire’s craving the hunger that feeds this kismet.

We each have a place in this life, to give and to take,
defined by an evolving chain of living and dying.
I feel no malice, we are both prisoners to our birth.

You will be an honor to my ancient royalty,
For I am Simba, King of the Jungle, and you,
are a delicious irony for my kingdom’s table.

©2018, Donald Harbour

 

 

 

Fallen sparrow

A small sparrow fell out of the sky today,
I held it in the palm of my hand,
Until it was well enough to fly away.

©2015, Donald Harbour

Morning in the South

I arose this morning –
the dawn silently tip toeing,
across the sleeping dark horizon.

Bare stark branches of trees,
gatekeepers of the coming day,
beseech the horns of Luna to stay.

Night has left behind diamonds
glittering, strung across the ground,
a gift for the coming spring.

Tendrils of fireplace smoke waft
with the musky clear, crisp air,
a ritual offering to the hearth.

Fluffy feathered birds chirp awake,
shaking the cold from drowsy beaks,
tenors tuning up for their work.

A distant hound speaks its mind,
announcing another glorious
morning in the American South.

This magical moment of wakening,
carries the heritage of time,
of past and present, of tomorrows.

It touches the soul, the heart,
with things that are gentle reminders
of what it means to be a Southerner.

 ©2015, Donald Harbour

So mote it be

Today, spoke I to a man old in the woods,
spoke of stones in the dark forest,
stones that knew of humankind and time,
spoke of ancient age before now.
before what we have written,
spoke of before what we call known,
these stones mottled with aeons,
weathered by the earth and its work,
these stones remembered and watched,
remembered and spoke of past before,
these scribes of the giant cataclysms,
watching the ancients descend to earth,
eyes of granite open to the past,
watching the unfolding of the future,
knowing what passed would again be,
watching the sons of soil in greedy toil,
brethren to the manna of Mother Earth,
descendent of the distant stars,
brethren to the woodland creatures,
now unknowing of who or what they were,
brethren of the stones, woods, water,
I am you, you are I, we are eternity,
spoke these watching brethren,
and thus the Gods said so mote it be.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Enchantress

in the verdant deep woods,
the tome of time waits
an ancient silent sentinel,
expressing life in each leaf
in every dewdrop falling
from breeze blown boughs,
the scent of time is bound
to woodland earth creatures,
to the forest fertile loam
giving reason for mighty oaks,
dogwood, sassafras, spindly pines,
here there is quietude in life,
a circle of creation, dying,
birthing, returning, the rhythm
of the eternal seasonal clock,
as it has always been and will be,
Mother Nature does not care,
she is creation’s mistress,
her oil, gas and her coal,
are mankind’s succubus.

©2014, Donald Harbour

A political barnyard

The barnyard political pastures
are being rutted by feral swine.
Their heads foul with their own droppings,
snouts coated with mendacious swill.
They are gluttonous hogs eating garbage
tossed by Praetorian money changers.
Bloated guts rumbling with putrid dogma
baked in billionaire board rooms.
The mindless population of poultry pecking,
squawking, strutting, satisfied by jowl crumbs,
Chickens accepting what ever is left
clueless about their ultimate plucked outcome.
Together they breathe contaminated air
ignorant of the poison they inhale.
There are squabbles over pigweed,
pearlwort, purslane, petty feedlot growth.
Attention to the triviality of life, ignoring
their ultimate fate, a slaughterhouse.
When they are gone they leave only
the waste of their pitiless passing.
Another layer of manure awaiting
the next generation’s contribution.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Cows are plotting to end the world

When the world ended the atmosphere blazed,
From horizon to horizon in a blue methane haze.

Homo sapiens died, their extinction complete,
No longer lesser creatures with forks would they eat.

The conspiracy planned since the dawn of time,
When the first rumen, humans killed to dine.

People had ignored the United Nations report
Instead laughing and saying: “It’s a crude joke of sort!”

There in words, as plain as day, it could be read,
“Cattle eliminations caused global warming,” it said.

But the truth was hidden by burps, belches and farts,
As the world’s cattle diligently performed their parts.

Each had a job to eat as much food as they could,
Ruminating gas production by thoroughly chewing their cud.

All this, while humans fought over oil prices, religion, tax,
Miley Cyrus CD’s, political parties, plastic boobies and sex.

Cows lay in fields placid, non threatening and benign,
Methodically eating, chewing, flatulating, biding their time.

The earth grew warmer as their efforts rose in the air,
While scientist begged humans to eat less meat, in despair.

Cow pies covered the fields as the green grass grew abundant,
Environmentalists argued over positions inane and redundant.

Then an upheaval so massive it’s hard to understand,
Cows the world over organized to make the last gaseous stand.

With an earth shuddering roar cows let loose a trombone blast,
Humans held their noses, grimacing, gagged with a gasp.

The skies were finally saturated to the fullest extent,
There was no other contribution, not a single cow could vent.

All bovines moved as if a perceived signal had been given,
To rivers and lakes and hidden valleys they were driven.

One volunteer cow stood on a Rocky Mountain height,
Its suicide mission, the methane atmosphere to light.

It struck a match, a beacon that flared a bright red,
And thrust it into the green layer just above its horned head.

The rest is history, there is nothing more one can say,
Only cows populate the earth no humans lived past that day.

Note: Several years past a Wall Street Journal article proposed “Cow Tax” in an effort to underscores the Greenhouse-Gas Divide. I thought; “Could there really be a grain of truth here?” The poem is a response to ‘what if’!
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©2014, Donald Harbour

Dali got it right

Last night I happily dreamed,
Our world’s ship turned upside down,
Giant oaks hung suspended in the air,
While birds flew on the ground.

Air was not polluted for breath,
All water pure for drinking too,
The earth’s creatures took photographs,
Of caged humans in their public zoo.

It was a world of imaginations,
Where peace reigned supreme,
Where guns were licorice sticks,
And oil was frothy whipped cream.

Blue skies were always overhead,
Rivers and lakes placidly flowed,
Fish were scaled in sparkling diamonds,
Multicolored butterflies paved each road.

Cows were made for milk and mooing,
Chickens cheerfully clucked a chicken song,
Lions laid beside fluffy white lambs,
No one ever heard the words: “This is wrong!”

There were no gods or seraph,
No torture or misguided religious grief,
No war mongers, government or politicians,
Pontificating their bellicose belief.

Pink peddle-pushers road horseback,
Through fields of limeade green,
Not found were homeless without homes,
Unbranded tennis shoes were only seen.

Dali was captain of this wondrous ship,
Sailing over the sea of cosmic space,
The passengers of his whimsical bark,
Different hues of the same human race.

Dawn pulled me from the dream,
It whispered a new beginning had begun,
Startled I realized in a jolt of epiphany,
All of us, could make this year, the one.

©2014, Donald Harbour