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

With all

One day, not distant, not far,
Awoke I to an orange ball of light,
a marble of fire in the heavens,
Laid I my boot upon its neck,
striding into the distant stars,
Never I a glance over my shoulder,
eyes turned to the mysterious universe,
There I became lost within the void,
finding that for which I had searched,
Lifting I fingers of contradiction,
truth pulsed beneath my callous skin,
Knowing I am one with creation,
that creation is one with all,
this day, this moment, this now.

©2017, Donald Harbour

Night wind

Hubble telescope; Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula.

The celestial wind is whispering tonight,
a voyager from the beginning of time,
dusty ancient castaway breath of the stars.
Where have you been, what have you seen,
did you skirt the Pillars of Creation,
did you watch the birth of new stars,
did you teach the planets a song to sing?
The sky is your concert hall, your ballroom
Is it you that makes the heavenly lights twinkle.
There the bright pinpoints beckon, toying,
challenging creatures to ride your zephyr,
feeling the breeze of your alluvium is kindred,
and, I wonder if what you are, am I also?

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

Humanities legacy

For a moment I felt panic,
reaching in mankind’s pocket I found,
not a spiritual coin there,
not a cent to our name,
thus it occurred to me,
how will humankind be valued ,
what decides its weight in gold,
a child collecting for the hungry,
a minister begging for his church
a greedy banker holding forth for more,
a politician sending youth to die in war,
corporations queuing up for contracts of death,
what stain decides our existence value,
how does life weigh the human soul
is the evil of mankind more weighted,
than the purity of love and kindness,
has humanity so lost its way, that
it has become a pox upon life.
and what will give worth to it,
what will weigh its soul against destiny,
will nature turn her back on us,
lack forgiveness for our transgressions,
humanities castigation of lesser creatures,
defiling creation the essence of the eternal,
how can we find the worth of humanities name,
how will we be defined by the Celestial,
will our name become parasite, pariah,
carnivore of the cosmos, succubus,
vandal of the weak, the less fortunate, poor,
I fear our name is Dante’s king,
I fear we have grown cloven hooves,
the defilers of all that is good,
perverting spiritual beliefs,
and yet, there is a dime left,
it shimmers in the pool of tomorrow,
waiting to be grasped and spent,
a dime for our salvation, redemption,
will we spend it wisely, give it worth,
will it decide how mankind will be remembered,
finding value on the scales of the universe,
or will we be come curious fossils,
studied by our world’s next experiment.

©2014, Donald Harbour

 

The enigmas of Mars

Mars

with Curiosity humans peered
the scene is desolate
a dry bed of sand and pebbles
water once flowed here
there was life in abundance
now replaced by the events of time
eons of the past brought change
only thin aired breezes whisper
days are burning hot
nights frigid numbing cold
what was before now lies dormant
hiding in deep recesses of rock
adapting becoming resilient
waiting for birthing moisture
and while life suspended abides
the red planet continues its course
until man’s machines disturbed the slumber
awakening the enigmas of Mars

©2012, Donald Harbour

Embracing nothing

did you ever know desolation
knowing that there is nothing
but a mind trapped in a loop
the scene playing over and over
no way to turn off its totality
a feeling of vast aching emptiness
a wilderness scream no one hears
no one cares no one ever will

the streets are  full of catatonic people
moving objects in cloistered shells
avoiding each others eye contact
no smile no hint of human recognition
they are a wasteland of flesh and bone
bodies clothed in a death shroud
plaintive expressions of indifference
no one cares no one ever will

the thought occurs you are alone
you are the only thinking human left
you feel the species quickened demise
fear has replaced rational reason
in a moment breath is gone collapsing
there is a panic of emotional suffocation
you now know the burden of loneliness
no one cares no one ever will

©2012, Donald Harbour

Bounded by boarders

“My God,” cried the supplicant,
expressing belief in extremity,
that token labium of the metaphysical.
We are all the hoarders of borders,
living on imagined deckle-edged paper,
there writing our circumscribed lives.
Each defining the selvage of our fears,
consternation of woven limitations, we are
fettered by a bête noire tenant of the soul.
At times, others handcuff us to a purlieus bed,
accepting, seeking release from dragging our yokes,
then, refusing to master the pale of our requiem.
Lives lived in containment, shackled by convergence,
never venturing into the freedom of self, never
bounding past our own hobbling erosive manacles.
They are meant to contain, they are control,
the pestilence of living that defines what we become.
When the lights go out we are each confined,
bound by dirt, plastic, wood, or brass jar,
that is the environ of our material existence,
rest, peace within a packaged repository.
We do not realize there is no caracole,
only in life ending release of the energy within,
will we understand its limitlessness, and the
boundless freedom of being one with creation.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Nothing ever ends

In all endings there is renewal,
The flesh devoured nourishes life,
A flower wilts to feed the soil,
Clouds form then shed into rain,
Stars coalesce in dense black holes,
Bursting forth expelling new worlds,
Just as everything is star dust,
As once it was so again it will be,
The immortality of Ouroboros is creation,
Devoured by the mechanics of the cosmos,
To become the Phoenix eternal return,
Death is the alchemist’s opus,
The crucible’s natural cycle of life,
The chrysalis metamorphose into rebirth,
Nothing ever ends, there is only change.

©2011, Donald Harbour

To know time

Time is the decomposition
Of life between birth and death.
Measured not in seconds or minutes,
Not by days and nights nor seasons,
It is known by how we see it,
A calculated mechanical representation,
Time is those special instances,
Those cairns we leave behind,
Milestones that mark our progress,
Memory’s points of reference,
Their panorama is so vast,
An overwhelming joy to behold,
Yet it seems in an instant,
They are gone forever, and ever,
For this brief flicker of consciousness,
We hold the cosmos in our hearts,
Never realizing that it is there,
We float on the bubble of eternity,
Every particle connected,
Every atom related to creation,
To accept this absolute truth,
To be aware of it,
Is to know thyself,
To know and love your time,
Your eternal instant.

©2011, Donald Harbour