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

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

Prophecy

In the dust of desert sands,
Among the ruins of arrogant men,
The pages of time are still written,
Where waters flowed, the dry bed aches,
Buried beneath millenniums forgotten, lost,
Dreamers sleep, soul to soul, bone to bone,
You will not know me, nor I you,
I am because, I was and will ever so be,
Though the earth may split asunder,
The mud bricks may crumble and disappear,
The knowledge on plaster walls unknowable,
Know this: the calamity of this past,
Will become the work of your future,
To be buried by the ritual of your passing,
Joining all that were before,
Consumed by the creatures and the soil,
Sleeping the endless, godless sleep,
Of having been, and nothing more.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Tardigrade

I have to admit it,
in this life, I have been
wrong about somethings.
Most, not complicated, nor of
raised eyebrow interest.
However, there are those instances
where the picayune nature
of events and, or, misunderstanding,
cause me to quibble,
to make prevaricating comments,
just to hide my ignorance,
assuming I am truly capable,
of such.
Instigated by a provocateur,
a grinning interrogation:
“Are there,water bears in your glass?”
‘What the hell is that?’
Then that smug,
narrow eyed,
thin lip smirk:
“Are you drinking a mossy piggy?”
‘Creepy, are you a pervert?’
Laughter, followed my exit.
I have always disdained smart asses,
their mocking generalities, common.
The internet cured my intellectual
illness on the subject at hand.
It appears, eutelic extremophiles,
are everywhere, those water bears
and mossy piggies are found
on the highest mountain,
in  the deepest sea,
in boiling water, in frigid
absolute zero, in your glass
of water, the phytophagous,
bacteriophagous, Cambrian,
ubiquitous, tardigrade.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Dave Bonta, an online  poet acquaintance of mine, threw out a challenge, write a poem about tardigrades. Not my favorite subject until I saw and read about this marvelous little creature. I apologize if this does not meet your standards for poetry, however, you try writing about a Tardigrade.