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

Did you feed the beast today

The blackened earth lies exhausted,
It has become the parchment map of mankind.
Streams marked as fleshy cracked soot lines
Foot notes to human careless brutality.
A beast roars, baring its oil soaked fangs,
Consuming all that challenge it.
A loosed monster clawing at sacred life,
It is hungry and demanding to be fed.
The frailty of simple legions do battle,
With baggy armor, with puny tools,
Come to wage war against the dragon,
Clashing in conflict with Brigid’s spawn.
Thus the valiant warrior line is drawn,
Furrowed into Gaea’s rich bountiful sea,
Thrown into the oily coils of this hell.
Slimy tendrils choke the living elements,
This ancient incubus from the depths, copulating
With air, water, earth…Mother Nature violated.
The wail is not from joy, it is pain.
The writhing scales of its black body expand,
Whipping across azure blue, taunting.
It spills into the tidal pools of creation,
Searching, reaching, killing…it has wants.
In the end man will close its jaws,
Subdue and tame the creature,
Drowning it in its own vulnerability.
Gaining strength in its receding death,
The two legged water filled bags of skin,
They will learn from the serpent demise,
Until they are overcome by their arrogance,
Until next time it rises to the surface to feed.

©2011, Donald Harbour

Humankind will run out

UPI picture of Brown Pelican covered with crude oil from the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico .

I always return to the fields,
the fragrant skin of Mother Nature.
There the plowed furrow exposes
her flesh, pungent, vernal,
nurturing the body and the
instincts. I sorrow at the rape
of her precious gifts, those
bosoms of life, the mountains
and valleys, the very cradle
where humans were born
in universal creation. She
will not forever forgive, nor
understand, our capriciousness.
Human tantrums despoiling the
purity of this existence will
not be absorbed. The partners
in this life, the creatures of the air,
water, and the soil, will not continue
to bear the brunt of our indifference.
They are the blessed, feral children
of our Mother, as once were we. The
tree of life balances each living thing,
as all living things draw from that
life, treading only a path necessary
through the verdant veld of being.
Stones stand in silent witness shouldering
the passage of time. Granite giants that
will become dust as will all life. As
it has been for untold eons, so the
course of humankind will run out.
I am comforted by this, knowing that
life will continue changed without
our boot heel upon the neck
of our fellow creatures and fields.

Copyright: 2010, Donald Harbour