What they have made me

Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland, home of my Grandmother Elsie “Ferguson” Harbour’s family.

Awakening this morning
I am blushed with the dawn,
Standing at a frosty window
inhaling with an icy yawn,
Dogs are greeting the day
whining at the frozen grass,
You snug under the covers
my blonde blue-eyed lass,
I leave off my bathrobe
the cold good against my skin,
Feeling the call of forefathers
those Celtic Highlander men,
From deep in my sired soul
voices reach an open mental ear,
Guiding my footsteps in life
each day, week, month, and year,
There are others there to speak,
all from a far distant time,
Crafted by their ancient wisdom
knowledge carried in my mind,
I am grateful for their presence
for the things they let me know,
I am that which they have made me
a mosaic of my clan past tableau.

©2012, Donald Harbour

A new dawn

Dawn rises behind beech trees in November.

In the fall crispness of early morning,
As the frost grew on the wilted grass,
One could hear daylight’s gentle whisper,
The song of the night as it passed.

Below a tree line of leaf bare branches,
Through the meadow and foggy glen,
The sun’s first rays touched tall beeches,
Warming forest creatures and blood of men.

The cock had spoken in a plaintive cry,
Calling the day from its foundling burrow,
Casting its suspicious rooster red-eye,
The beginning of yesterday’s tomorrow.

Birds fluffed feathers against the chill,
Their chirps a greeting to one another,
As on the top of a distant silhouetted hill,
Flowers peeped from beneath earth’s cover.

The heart is filled with an ancient desire,
To join in this wondrous jubilant chorus,
To stoke life’s primitive cooking fire,
From a time once remembered as glorious.

Buried there with in my quaking soul,
Where memory waits in a secret place,
I find an outward drift toward the light,
Absorbing its gracious gift upon my face.

This cherished experience of the ages,
A  thanksgiving for those past and gone,
Yet there before me it is held in wonder,
As was the earth’s first blessed golden dawn.

©2011, Donald Harbour

On life’s stage

This form of poetry is taken from Japanese tradition and is called a Haibun. It includes prose with a Haiku at the end. Written in response to the prompt at “Margo Roby: Word Gathering for Tryout Tuesday, Haibun”.

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I have wandered life’s stage never yet finding my voice. Somewhere in the wings it hides in the folds of the curtain. Or maybe on the scaffolding where the lights are rigged. I often believe that searched for voice is adjusting the lights thus moving the spot on the stage where I should stand, should speak, should deliver. There is nonsense in this playful speculation though it causes me to wonder if all the other actors surrounding me are searching as well for that moment of oratory when they will finally be heard, be recognized. The performance is so brief and scripted. Although we are told that all great actors yearned for their moment too, I wonder if their script was written by the likes of Thornton Wilder while my lines came from some struggling unknown. Was the play I am in rejected by the better theaters, relegated to a high school auditorium in Bug Tussle, Texas, far from the Broadway lights whose glare can spell success in ones career? I do not wear a mask in this play. My mouth is not muffled by the tape of a false beard, my face not hidden by makeup. The foot lights blind me to the audience so I cannot see how many seats are filled. My fear is that when the curtain does come down there will be no great reviews, no applause for a performance well given.

Autumn is here
frosty footsteps
there is dawn