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

A Greek tragedy

The honey red heifer is birthing,
a difficult calving under monstrous
roiling dark bellied storm clouds,

She has chosen to offer up her gift,
under a twisted, gnarled, ancient tree ,
the only old guardian of the pastures.

She bellows not understanding it is necessary.
In the midst of her agony the Hyades
conspire to muffle her wild-eyed complaints.

The bowels of the fields are bulging,
constipated with swollen verdant seeds,
anticipating an elixir from above.

These grassy tarns of seasonal
vivacity will explode, grasping
the pastures fertile beckoning thighs,

a rapturous rupture of the soil, an
orgasm of awakening to satisfy
the heavenly rain spiked thrusts.

In the midst of April’s tribulation
a nocturnal nuisance has arrived,
raucous, unyielding in its annoyance.

Somewhere in the fence hedge, above
natures pious conversation, piercing
the vernal bacchanal of the night,

a feathered creature speaks in
full tenor timbre, Pavarotti incarnate,
it choruses the drama of this Greek

tragedy, played out in the amphitheater
of creation. Will there be life, or, the
tearful damning gloom of death.

Thor’s mighty hammer dispels
the Stygian darkness with crackling
light, a proctor quieting the class.

With a pause, sweet as the kiss of dew,
there is a gasp of all the calamity.
Mother Nature gathers her children, watching.

Life has arrived in a wet gelatinous
blanket, loved with soft brown eyes
and a lick for the first calf of spring.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Grandfather’s house

When I look back to childhood
I remember my grandfather’s house;
its smells rancor with age, with
things past slowly settling, slipping
into a grave of forgotten times.
The sweet odor of cooking bacon,
buttermilk biscuits, snuff, and drying herbs;
the seasons changed but the smells remained.
In winter the wind blew a shrill whistle,
drum beating against the clapboards.
Inside was cozy and warm, the iron stove
painting the room in sepia light, yellowed
by the glowing firebox Isinglass windows.
Grandmother in her straight back hardwood rocker,
knitting against its slow rhythmic creak,
slow as the hours that the house held,
rhythmic as the heartbeat counting seconds.
When the seconds ceased they were gone.
The house no longer had a purpose,
its life sucked into the depths of the grave.
Joyless, nonspeaking, life’s sigh silenced,
nothing left but aging memories to speak for it.

©2013, Donald Harbour

 

Live, love, work, and eat in the good ole South

I like my cracklin’ cornbread
eaten with a pot of pinto beans,
and a pan of salt pork cooked with
collard, poke, and turnip greens.
I like my chicken fried in butter,
served with mash sweet potatoes too,
a baked white onion pie and
slow cooked Brunswick venison stew.
I like my Mallard duck roasted
stuffed with Arkansas wild rice,
for dessert a steamed bread pudding
and orange sauce is mighty nice.
I like to pick my peaches
off my granny’s lone peach tree,
put them in a brown sugar cobbler
and have a pitcher of sun brewed iced tea.
I like to pick yellow sweet corn,
and eat it raw right off the stalk,
have dinner with friends and kinsfolk,
and long summer evening porch talk.
I like my smoked bacon sliced thick,
in its grease my eggs turned over easy,
or scrambled with last falls souse,
that is if it won’t make you queasy.
I like catfish cooked in cornmeal
with  coleslaw, pickles and bread,
a moon pie and an RC cola,
a shady place to nap after I’m fed.
I like….no, I love cayenne peppers,
eaten every meal fresh off the vine,
or orange Habanero and Serrano,
pickled in vinegar, saltwater and wine.
I like a bowl of wilted lettuce,
fried pork chops and black eyed peas,
a pan of milk gravy and biscuits
dipped in the syrup of wild honey bees.
I like my thick buttermilk to have
golden flakes floating on its top,
and mom’s toasted molasses bran bread
with red-eye gravy in the skillet to sop.
I like my coffee brewed black and strong
in our 100-year-old percolator pot,
Aunt Mabel’s cinnamon buns from the oven,
when they are still steamy and hot.
I like each year’s bounty of our fields,
a true pleasure for anyone’s mouth,
but most of all I like the way we live, love,
work, play, and eat, in the good Old American South.

Now, y’all come for dinner, ya hear?

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour

What is black

What is black?
Is it the confusion
in a starless night?
What is black?
Is it the envelope
surrounding a corpse?
What is black?
Maybe it is the color
of complete destruction.
What is black?
Does it reside in
the heart of greedy humans?
What is black?
Could it be the
complacency of commission?
What is black?
I will tell you,
open your eyes and see.
What is black?
It is the tar stain
upon Mother Natures breasts.
What is black?
It is the choking slick
upon the surface of creation.
What is black?
It is the oil that
gives reason to mendacious men.
What is black?
It is the killing field
in the marshes and bayous.
What is black?
It is the tragedy
contaminating our ocean’s life.
What is black?
It is the face of consumption,
it is the face of us.

©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.

Remembering Wanda Hawley

Wanda Hawley, 1920, silent movie star. You are remembered.

Blue Wanda, you are nectar,
That sweet cusp of desire,
You, tucked in violet petals,
Perched upon a delicate stem,
Rooted in Hollywood’s vermicelli,
You waited for the sting of love,
Thirsted for that drop of dew,
Quivering in life’s passing breeze,
Blue Wanda you captivate the heart,
Posed only in a fading still photo.
Born in the soil of Bacchus,
You soften our existence,
Your twin star yet shines in bloom.

©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

Beached whales

Summer has arrived early
Its forging hammer slamming earthward
A furnace breath sears the living
Sucking the moisture from leaves
Everywhere the heat shimmers
Undulating ribbons of reflections
This parched ground is dormant
Its life tallow hardened
The grass has given up
Only some green tips show
The rest stunted straw men
The sun a white hot globe
It does not know mercy
Heating the barely breathable air
Living creatures suffer inhaling
Birds refuse to pierce the sky
The azure blue now a blistering lens
On the lake shore there are bodies
Beached and oiled human whales
They fry in the ultraviolet oven
Soaking up vitamin D morphing
Becoming desiccated melanoma vessels
Lobsters steaming in the lake water
Scorched blondes, tanned brunettes
Fat men and skinny pimpled teenage boys
No mercy, no mercy for any of them

©2011, Donald Harbour

Live, love, work, play and eat in the South

I like my cracklin’ cornbread
eaten with a pot of pinto beans,
and a pan of salt pork cooked with
collard, poke, and turnip greens.
I like my chicken fried in butter,
served with mash sweet potatoes too,
a baked white onion pie and
slow cooked Brunswick venison stew.
I like my Mallard duck roasted
stuffed with Arkansas wild rice,
for dessert a steamed bread pudding
and orange sauce is mighty nice.
I like to pick my peaches
off my granny’s lone peach tree,
put them in a brown sugar cobbler
and have a pitcher of sun brewed iced tea.
I like to pick yellow sweet corn,
and eat it raw right off the stalk,
have dinner with friends and kinfolk,
and long summer evening porch talk.
I like my smoked bacon sliced thick,
in its grease my eggs turned over easy,
or scrambled with last falls souse,
that is if it won’t make you queasy.
I like catfish cooked in cornmeal
with coleslaw, pickles and bread,
a moon pie and an RC cola,
a shady place to nap after I’m fed.
I like….no, I love cayenne peppers,
eaten every meal fresh off the vine,
or orange habeneros and serranos,
pickled in vinegar, saltwater and wine.
I like a bowl of wilted lettuce,
fried pork chops and blackeyed peas,
a pan of milk gravy and biscuits
dipped in the syrup of wild honey bees.
I like my thick buttermilk to have
golden flakes floating on its top,
and mom’s toasted molasses bran bread
with redeye gravy in the skillet to sop.
I like my coffee brewed black and strong
in our 100 year old percolator pot,
Aunt Mabel’s cinnamon buns from the oven,
when they are still steamy and hot.
I like each year’s bounty of our fields,
a true pleasure for anyone’s mouth,
but most of all I like the way we live, love,
work, play, and eat, in the good Old American South.

Now, y’all come for dinner, ya hear?

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour