Things Possessed

Are we not possessed of possessions.
Things in transition from one state,
to becoming something other than they are.
Every pot and pan, each book and tablet,
a garden, and home, all transitory.
Even the thread that binds a shirt,
changing, neither a possession nor
possessed, used, not owned, allowed.
This mind that writes these words,
changing, what was thought possessed,
now gone, here given to the reader.
We are all things that ever were,
recycled particles of the cosmos,
what we will become is never kept.
The only real thing that can be possessed
is this moment, this second of time,
a sweep of a tick-tock on  the eternal clock.
Things do not belong to us, as we do not
belong to ourselves, for we are only,
an earthly dalliance of creation, and
that too is a possession of eternity.

©2021 Donald Harbour

 

Reasons to live

There is a blessing in the morning silence,
That moment just before the awakening,
A solitude of expectations for beginning,
The day holds its pregnant breath waiting,
A thin light peaks beneath the dark,
As if to shove aside the dreams of night,
It is an invitation opening the soul’s door,
A corporeal alarm for all creatures to arise,
The birds gentle chirping natures wind chimes,
Rustling frantic fall leaves answer,
In the distance a cock beckons his flock,
Gaia moves, shouldering a frosty blanket,
We are all one, the one is in all,
It awakes from slumber with the dawn,
Offering a cascade of possibilities,
Possibilities for today, tomorrow, forever,
Inhale its fragrance, acknowledge its power,
Consume this gift of time and live.

©2019, Donald Harbour

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

Ozarks

There my loves lay,
Those breasts swelling,
Challenging their limits,
I dream of them, I inhale their scent,
This loamy contact with them,
I love this moment, this communion,
They are surrounded with mystery,
An archaic moaning of ages,
Loved, challenged, dismissed,
They survive, triumphant, waiting,
These Arkansas Ozarks,
Mother Earth’s children.

©2018, Donald Harbour

Resilience

In the glade an old Red Oak stands naked,
except for a single fluttering leaf,
still cast with the color of fall.
I have watched it for hours, and
I wonder if is proclaiming a message.
An axiom of life in its resilience,
its tenacity to purpose, to refusal,
a dogged determination to hang in there.
Though the winter wind tugs at its grip,
still it stays convinced that it must,
if not for purpose, then for the tree.

©2015, Donald Harbour

I am crowing for you

Morning is prying at my eyelids,
a nagging beggar demanding my attention.
It’s begging bowl gray clouds scudding,
held in the palm of a chilly autumn wind,
the rim loudly banging on the front door.
Somewhere a rooster offered a raspy croak,
a half hearted cock-a-doodle-do,
not a pleasant prospect of events.
You were buried in the cotton covers,
a wall of bricks plastered with blankets,
I feeling a conjugal urge to merge.
The rooster rules the rooster’s roust, but
there is a barnyard hierarchy, pecking order,
one’s order deduced by the clucking hens,
the mares nips at the stud, sows
nudge the boar away from the tough,
the bull levies his interest subtly,
modulated to the cows seasonal expectation.
You are not that tolerant, judgmental,
you are a woman ruled by the unknown.
I a furnace of heat, you a chasm of ice,
would, that you would thaw, melt into me,
then, hear my full throat cock-a-doodle-do.

©2015, Donald Harbour

Furl

Do you see when life begins to furl,
evolving, encompassing,
creating its own canard,
then floating back into vision,
a wind snapped flag, billowing,
to settle moist upon time’s petals,
time, I wonder about you,
there, I see you as you are,
as you have been, but I cannot
see you as you will become,
that is not to know, tomorrow
is written in the dawn of scudded
skies, purple and mauve as love,
tinted with promise, a soft kiss
lifting the heart a beat, I
wonder, when I close my eyes
as the dark of day descends,
will you be waiting for me tomorrow,
or will you unfurl that great cloak,
sail of your eternal arcane ship,
a boundless passage into the unknown.

©2015, Donald Harbour

I believe in change, nothing more

Change, we all change, life
is change. From the day of birth
change begins, we are a journey
of change. As a caterpillar becomes
a chrysalis to emerge a butterfly,
we exist in this cocoon of life to
emerge, changed. Our reality is death,
change from the material to the ethereal,
not an ending, a beginning, a wondrous,
marvelous participation in spiritual
evolution, our eternal existence,
the movement of energy through time
and space. The joining of the eternal
common thread. It has always been,
what has always been, and, it will
always be eternal. In change we
will once again join the spirituality
of creation’s cusp, to be born again.

©2015, Donald Harbour

A guest in lavender

Someone has arrived with spring,
A gangly girl cast in a lavender hue,
She sojourns at the garden gate,
Positioning her whimsy there,
Her want to protect the portal,
My wife has unfounded jealousy,
She says this spindly guest mocks,
Though she has not spoken, she clings,
Rearranging the wooden fence tactfully,
I find her a rather refreshing temptress,
Sliding beneath the crocus and rose,
Her gown of green lifted, baring,
Leggy female of Mother Earth,
You have interrupted my plans,
How can I but love you, my sweet,
Unwelcome beauty, euphonious Wisteria.

 ©2015, Donald Harbour

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