Searching through my attic
I found an old dusty box,
the cardboard stained by years,
neglect chewing its frayed edges.
It contained things not forgotten,
things unremembered,
the mind grocery list left behind,
a storehouse of need, yearning.
To awaken the past can be
a terrible realization of the present,
a specter finger pointing, condemning, accusing.
A dangerous reflection leads to guilt,
I wishes, whys, whys.
©2015, Donald Harbour
However many holy words you read,
however many you speak,
what good will they do you
if you do not act on upon them?
Whatever words we utter
should be chosen with care
for people will hear them and
be influenced by them for good or ill.
Better than a thousand hollow words,
is one word that brings peace.
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west;
people create distinctions out of their own minds
and then believe them to be true.
The way is not in the sky,
the way is in the heart.
A jug fills drop by drop.
Every human being is the author
of his own health or disease.
To understand everything
is to forgive everything.
In a controversy the instant we feel anger
we have already ceased striving for the truth,
and have begun striving for ourselves.
No one saves us but ourselves,
no one can and no one may,
we ourselves must walk the path.
This poem is written with the words of a man named Siddhārtha Gautama, the Buddha. I am not a Buddhist however if one were to internalize his words, they would change that persons life forever. It is that simple. May they bring you reflection and peace.
©2015, Donald Harbour
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
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
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
The dust of dusk is gathering,
an orange tinged crimson,
its detritus closes the hour.
The past procrastinates, lying,
deceiving the learned, the wise.
burying its muzzle in your forgotten.
There is no beginning in its end,
only the moment, another dawn,
the brass ring, another ride.
This flaccid imitation of hope,
of spiritual calamity, devouring
humanity with closed mouth clamoring.
Just when you figure life out,
a small rat of truth arrives, hungry
gnawing at the seams of your past.
You know you cannot win, ever,
the only trophy on your shelf
a granite slab and six feet of earth.
©2014, Donald Harbour
When the world ended the atmosphere blazed,
From horizon to horizon in a blue methane haze.
Homo sapiens died, their extinction complete,
No longer lesser creatures with forks would they eat.
The conspiracy planned since the dawn of time,
When the first rumen, humans killed to dine.
People had ignored the United Nations report
Instead laughing and saying: “It’s a crude joke of sort!”
There in words, as plain as day, it could be read,
“Cattle eliminations caused global warming,” it said.
But the truth was hidden by burps, belches and farts,
As the world’s cattle diligently performed their parts.
Each had a job to eat as much food as they could,
Ruminating gas production by thoroughly chewing their cud.
All this, while humans fought over oil prices, religion, tax,
Miley Cyrus CD’s, political parties, plastic boobies and sex.
Cows lay in fields placid, non threatening and benign,
Methodically eating, chewing, flatulating, biding their time.
The earth grew warmer as their efforts rose in the air,
While scientist begged humans to eat less meat, in despair.
Cow pies covered the fields as the green grass grew abundant,
Environmentalists argued over positions inane and redundant.
Then an upheaval so massive it’s hard to understand,
Cows the world over organized to make the last gaseous stand.
With an earth shuddering roar cows let loose a trombone blast,
Humans held their noses, grimacing, gagged with a gasp.
The skies were finally saturated to the fullest extent,
There was no other contribution, not a single cow could vent.
All bovines moved as if a perceived signal had been given,
To rivers and lakes and hidden valleys they were driven.
One volunteer cow stood on a Rocky Mountain height,
Its suicide mission, the methane atmosphere to light.
It struck a match, a beacon that flared a bright red,
And thrust it into the green layer just above its horned head.
The rest is history, there is nothing more one can say,
Only cows populate the earth no humans lived past that day.
Note: Several years past a Wall Street Journal article proposed “Cow Tax” in an effort to underscores the Greenhouse-Gas Divide. I thought; “Could there really be a grain of truth here?” The poem is a response to ‘what if’!
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©2014, Donald Harbour
I saw a girl with rosy red cheeks,
her delight was in her innocents,
indeed a rare quality in women,
seeing her was a dun upon my soul,
a demand seeking my inner pillars,
sounding the depths of my passion,
she was white light, pure as linen,
the sun paled in her presence,
birds hushed at the sound of her voice,
fallow ground blossomed where she walked,
I know that time separates us forever,
my mind reeks with the desire of her smile,
how can I compare her to life’s reality,
she is only a vision, a dream in my head,
an episodic moment in life’s pattern,
that is what haunts me, pulls at me,
evades my days, nights, my search,
unfulfilled, unsatisfied, lost.
©2014, Donald Harbour
Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg
On a ridge, astride my horse,
A scene of hell spreads before me,
An acrid pall hangs over a valley,
Wild flowers no longer grow here,
Their splash of colors erased,
Where green grass grew, mottled grey,
What the eyes see, the ears refuse,
Sounds that no human should hear,
The metallic rain and thunder that fell,
Replaced with the rasp of suffering,
A constant wasp stinging the mind,
Burrowing into the body’s soul and sinew,
What madness possesses men to so struggle,
What insanity this sacrilege to earth,
Religion, ideology, imagined boundaries,
If there be gods what must they think,
What punishment greater awaits us all,
And yet we pursue, we choose sides,
Never really understanding why,
Reason clouded by ones heated passion,
Later in reflection, supping a bitter cup of regret,
I turn away riding into the fog of time,
The lesson is never learned, never realized,
It is a continuously spinning many-sided dreidel,
We are all doomed by its predictable choices,
Our only salvation is tomorrow, let it not be another today.
©2013, Donald Harbour
I dreamed of a night with stars above,
millions of other dreamers about me,
shod with life’s tired and worn shoes,
toeing the edge of a decaying precipice,
the next step a door between worlds,
darkness, light – damnation, salvation,
is there a choice, is destiny mapped,
when do we leave this path, to face
the calamity of our ultimate fate,
when that time comes, as it will,
how are we scribed in the book of life,
some say it is not for us to know,
still I ask, can one accept only chance,
the wrong place at the wrong time,
when is the dark angel ever right,
life snuffed by the world’s insanity,
religious fervor screaming “God is great,”
there, now you have the arbiter,
it is emblazoned on every particle,
“Bless me Father for I have sinned,”
the wafer is stale, the wine; vinegar,
the priest has dirty finger nails,
rivers of blood ooze from the Bible,
from the Koran, from every word,
from every holy book ever written,
from the lifeless lips of children,
from the souls of mothers, fathers,
from the heart of self-righteous nations,
from the bowels of despots and bigots,
from the pious pitiless, and pompous,
the void leads to a bottomless pit,
from which there is no salvation, no light.
dogma’s beast has opened its maw to eat,
all are consumed by their beliefs,
silenced, their psychopathic shrill becomes,
a mountain of cast off, tired worn shoes.
@2012, Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 