Have you ever wondered,
if you were a bird,
what would you be?
Hawk, eagle, raptor,
singer of songs, layer
of eggs, learner of speech!
Perhaps a parasol toter,
a feathered clown perched.
A pigeon flitting across
barren war waste land with
carnage and death in
your nostrils, in your message.
Somewhere between the tweets,
the twitters feathers fall,
a taloned challenge to rain,
to pillows, down filled
comforters, a gathering of the
eaters of pullets, Cornish hens,
turkeys, ducks, doves, quail.
The persistence, the barbaric
plucking of feathers, the
incessant mutilation of fowl.
A Loon is calling across
the lake, it is doomed.
That mournful beautiful song
a whisper of humankind’s inattention.
Thus, praising the shimmer of natures
glow upon the distant thunder
of these sins, this consequential
disregard for the haphazard ritual
of getting it on at the first meeting
of seed and soil, spiritual Armageddon.
My lovers and friends, we are passed
beseeching. I ponder when did our minds
become so numbed, inane participants
in this thoughtless copulation, surrogate
to the creation of children in winter.
Who among the sexually restless,
would cast off cooped up passion,
forgoing a lusty climatic romp between
the silk coverlets of ruffled calamus.
A rise to the extravagant plumage
of desire’s red ripe bird, and then,
the slow heated act of pairing up,
bedding down upon the feathers of
comfort, fleshy casual satisfaction.
Movement, graceless sweaty clothes
gathered into a cold cotton bundle.
A spasmodic burst of heated breath frosting
the occluded windshield of our life.
These feathers are lifeless and without flight.
Pulled from this body, now useless as
the leftover carcass of a Thanksgiving feast.
Copyright: 2010, Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 