Starship

On a clear winter night,
When the frost begins to awaken
I lay on the cool fragrant ground,
Mother Earth strapped to my back.
A million billion twinkling lights
Spread across the sky just for me.
They banish the darkness of night,
A blazing universe of celestial candlelight
Spirits leave their hiding places,
Whispering, singing, caressing,
Frolicking among the vapors.
A gentle breeze carries their voice,
These night gypsies quiet the soul.
This magical moment a cup of wine,
The nectar of nature’s offered grape.
I have become the prow of Gaia’s ship
Plowing through a sea of stardust,
A course set toward a distant forever.
The beauty overwhelms me, I cannot breathe.

© 2019, 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

Winter long flying bird

The hawk of winter is sinking
its talons into the soul of earth,
bitter grievous dark beacon of
the long sleep, long flying bird
that beckons the forgiveness of spring,
it cannot wait its task for it blankets
this night with the howl of its song
and the moulting of its cold cold feathers,
perched upon the dead and fallow ground
there is hope in the birth it nurtures,
a blessing in the sacrifice to destiny,
it will not nest forever but for the morrow,
cast back to its northern clime
duty bound to leave us when the sun
awakens from its southern sojourn
with a heated nod shooing that pesky bird.

©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

Joyful madness

Potence has overtaken the dawn sky,
a mystical wakefulness in the scene,
a swirling mass of screeching devils,
choreographed jockeying for position.
They are grains of sand in the cosmos,
autumn’s winged disciple vagrant voyagers ,
These calamitous irreverent starlings,
gathering each year for millennium,
a convention of chirping auctioneers,
selling the season to winter’s chill.
Their movement paint on a Van Gogh canvas,
soon one will take command, a leader,
thousands will follow in joyful madness.
There will be evidence of their passing,
tree branches littered with white refuse,
then the tranquility of grateful silence.
I am transfixed by them and I wonder,
did humankind evolve from starlings?

©2013 Donald Harbour

The princely frog, a nursery rhyme

Dark folded upon folded
thus the room was molded,
as a fire flickered and danced.

The midnight hour struck
as each minute was plucked,
screaming mortal time advanced.

There a foul long-nosed witch
scowling with teeth black as pitch
to a fire added peat from a stinking bog.

Then from out of the gloom
with a hop into the retched room
came a princely magical speckled frog.

The frog loudly belched, then spoke
in a commanding princely croak,
“for a kiss I’ll grant you one wish.”

“You frog leave me alone”
said the scraggly old crone,
“or you’ll be my dinners’ main dish.”

The frog was undeterred
and once again it gently demurred,
“a wish for a single kiss.”

There was an evil cackle,
the cry of a strangled Grackle
that ended in a venomous hiss.

“Alright, grant me a desire,
lest on a spit you roast ‘or this fire,”
so she puckered up and gave him a peck.

“My wish is without my broom
I want to soar around this room
now grant it you ugly warted speck.”

“Done,” said he with a wink
and quicker than a gnat eye blink
the witch disappeared with a sigh.

An incessant buzzing in the air
announced an insect coursing there,
the sound of a common house fly.

The frog opened its mouth
a long tongue suddenly sprang out
and swallowed the bug without a word.

Now the only sounds in the firelight
were the crickets chirping  in the night
and  joyously singing of a single black bird.

The frog sat before the fire
peacefully in his princely frog attire,
a most satisfied look on his froggy face.

The witch received her wished boon,
un-broomed she flew around the room
and, instead of frog for dinner, she took his place.

“Ribit!”

©2013, Donald Harbour

Cartwheeling through the air

A flash against the azure hue,
I watch and marvel at the sight,
I watch and thrill at the arc
of each arrow perfect flight.
Spiraling to challenge clouds,
a skilled agile shining corsair,
an aerial performing acrobat,
cartwheeling through the air.
I wish that I were born different,
I wish that I could take flight too,
then I could have the fanciful fun,
as my feathered friend Grackles do.

©2013, Donald Harbour

Dim wits

Who knew we could fly?
Personal hygiene disregarded
a trans Atlantic flight ballistic
canard of contemporary constipation.
Bowels squeezed into corseted
over priced buckets of insanity.
There are no complaints,
the man is in cahoots with airlines,
you have paid to become a victim,
Undressed by over paid nematodes,
parasites of society dignified.
The jihadist have won and you do not
know it, their torture, confinement.
Searing the skies in aluminum tubes,
rebreathing your neighbors exhalent,
gimbiled by the rules, land of the free,
home of the brave, bullshit.
You are cattle giving in to the
Gestapo of democracy’s bureaucratizes,
it’s their job, you damn dim wits.
You have been sold a patriotic
bill of goods, and we are less for it.

©2012, Donald Harbour

This single kiss

He tenderly kissed her lips,
Then moved along his way.
A vagabond of the moment
His habit was not to stay.

She quivered ever so slightly,
Responding to the passing bliss.
His seed planted deep with in her,
Given gently in a single kiss.

Other lips awaited anxiously,
Beckoning from each lady fair.
On to the next budding beauty,
The Bumblebee coursed the air.

Ungainly little insect,
How the flowers love you near.
Hanging from your stubby wings,
Impossible flight you dare.

No honey is placed in your nest,
As your smaller cousins do.
But life you spread equally,
Each spring as the world renews.

Is it possible that you alone,
Are there to show us how?
With bands of black and yellow,
And pollen upon your brow.

It is not so much the beauty
Of your skill or grace or charm.
But that you know your one lone task,
Each year to tirelessly perform.

In watching you about your work,
It comes to this human mind,
That a lesson can be learned from you,
Which would benefit all mankind.

Like you each of us must work at life,
Some earn, some steal, some pay.
What if we all put back as much,
As that for which we took away?

By sweat of hand or thoughtful deed,
We all were pleasured to give,
So that the great and little lives,
In all nature might be helped to live.

From ant to flower – sea to earth,
From one creature to mighty herd.
Mankind and beast could live,
In peaceful harmony by but a word.

As you kiss the upturned lips,
Suspend in wondrous flight above,
Your kiss an expression of the word,
It is known as Mother Nature’s, love.

© 2011, Donald Harbour