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
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
Spring breath sighs upon my breast
fragrant lilac, dew laced and cool.
There at forest edge the paleness
of moonlight kissed rosy cheeks,
where crept the thunder of life
amongst moulted tree castings.
The finger of day beckons, a passionate
desire, eyes shaded, lips parted,
to summon flesh upon flesh, sweet,
sweet flower of fire burning my soul,
consuming all that will become of me,
rolling in the frothing white surf of love.
©2015, 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
Last night I happily dreamed,
Our world’s ship turned upside down,
Giant oaks hung suspended in the air,
While birds flew on the ground.
Air was not polluted for breath,
All water pure for drinking too,
The earth’s creatures took photographs,
Of caged humans in their public zoo.
It was a world of imaginations,
Where peace reigned supreme,
Where guns were licorice sticks,
And oil was frothy whipped cream.
Blue skies were always overhead,
Rivers and lakes placidly flowed,
Fish were scaled in sparkling diamonds,
Multicolored butterflies paved each road.
Cows were made for milk and mooing,
Chickens cheerfully clucked a chicken song,
Lions laid beside fluffy white lambs,
No one ever heard the words: “This is wrong!”
There were no gods or seraph,
No torture or misguided religious grief,
No war mongers, government or politicians,
Pontificating their bellicose belief.
Pink peddle-pushers road horseback,
Through fields of limeade green,
Not found were homeless without homes,
Unbranded tennis shoes were only seen.
Dali was captain of this wondrous ship,
Sailing over the sea of cosmic space,
The passengers of his whimsical bark,
Different hues of the same human race.
Dawn pulled me from the dream,
It whispered a new beginning had begun,
Startled I realized in a jolt of epiphany,
All of us, could make this year, the one.
©2014, Donald Harbour
A January wind
Caught the old man
Clasping withered limbs
Breaking his bones
Exposing sockets
Glaring fresh scars
Over scattered remains.
©2013, Donald Harbour
Diana Fritillary butterfly on Mike Harbour’s Zennias.
As flickering bits of confetti,
torn paper cast they float
attaching to flowers and trees.
Flashes of sparkling color,
iridescent hues of the rainbow
trace these aerial spindly creatures.
The trees are telling nature
to get ready for the season’s child
a capricious snowy headed cherub.
Yet here are the last hangers-on,
pausing to pose for a picture
then gliding away to another petal.
Do they smell the air as I,
a mosaic breath of warmth, chill,
blended with damp dead leaves, and musk.
Rest arises from the earth
pushing furry babes to deep burrows,
proclaiming sleep will save you.
Gray has muted the sun’s light,
scudding clouds have dismissed it
they forage to drop their burden.
I wonder why the butterflies linger
defying the moment to drink the last nectar,
fall is waiting with its frosty wings.
Maybe it is because only their kiss
can comfort summer’s passing flowers
to promise resurrection in the spring.
©2012, Donald Harbour
Bradford Pear blossoms
There it is, that peculiar odor. An announcement heralding an arrival. This slap to the olfactories is a smelling salt of sweet scent mingled with decaying flesh. It proclaims spring to be sprung, buds to have blossomed, inoculating, scintillating, resonating the seasonal change. Everywhere it has laid a bland canopy of white. And, that is the only, the one and only salvation for the annual foliage of the Bradford Pear tree.
When there is passing
buzzard winds clean the bone
flowers will grow.
©2012, Donald Harbour
Haibun is a composition that combines a paragraph of prose in tangential or oblique relationship with a haiku poem. For We Write Poems prompt.
Bye, bye babies.
A spindly creature occupies the yard,
filled with notations of red, perched
as pompous breasted birds wanting to fly,
she cannot let them for it is not time,
this pregnant apparition clings to them,
her holy crown of forest green shimmering,
soon she will move giving elemental birth,
such as has been done for as long as memory,
youth will not know her season long courage,
nor appreciate this fruitful fulfillment,
once there is release from her womb,
there will come a time of rest for her,
waiting for the returning honey maker,
there to impregnate her blossoms of love,
giving her a reason to live and produce again.
©2012, Donald Harbour
Ahh, yes! So there you are. I see you snow.
The gathering voice of old man winter,
summoned the icy north-wind to blow.
Gently shaking, each oak limb trembles,
scattering a mosaic color carpet below.
The leaves a membrane for the season,
left over from the year’s autumn show.
Now nature is snug beneath its blanket,
Awaiting December’s first quiet snow.
©2011, Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 