So mote it be

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

Tardigrade

I have to admit it,
in this life, I have been
wrong about somethings.
Most, not complicated, nor of
raised eyebrow interest.
However, there are those instances
where the picayune nature
of events and, or, misunderstanding,
cause me to quibble,
to make prevaricating comments,
just to hide my ignorance,
assuming I am truly capable,
of such.
Instigated by a provocateur,
a grinning interrogation:
“Are there,water bears in your glass?”
‘What the hell is that?’
Then that smug,
narrow eyed,
thin lip smirk:
“Are you drinking a mossy piggy?”
‘Creepy, are you a pervert?’
Laughter, followed my exit.
I have always disdained smart asses,
their mocking generalities, common.
The internet cured my intellectual
illness on the subject at hand.
It appears, eutelic extremophiles,
are everywhere, those water bears
and mossy piggies are found
on the highest mountain,
in  the deepest sea,
in boiling water, in frigid
absolute zero, in your glass
of water, the phytophagous,
bacteriophagous, Cambrian,
ubiquitous, tardigrade.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Dave Bonta, an online  poet acquaintance of mine, threw out a challenge, write a poem about tardigrades. Not my favorite subject until I saw and read about this marvelous little creature. I apologize if this does not meet your standards for poetry, however, you try writing about a Tardigrade.

To believe in mermaids

the old swimming hole
is a secretive place
especially under a full moon
the water of the creek
simmers in the lunar light
casting images of magic
across a watery tableau
she came here on those nights
to swim and cleanse her soul
slipping out of her clothes
she stood like a goddess
Athena, Aphrodite, Venus,
a glowing perfectly formed woman
when she let down her hair
it fell in an auburn cascade
against her white skin
accenting her fairness
she plunged into the stillness
her body slicing the surface
no tidal waves were created
a tiny ripple lapped at the bank
she did not come up for air
she had no need for air
upon entering the water
she was changed became different
if one were to ask a knowing person
what had happened to her
they would say, she has become
a mermaid as she always has been
say that she could speak to fish
teach birds to sing and bees to hum
they would say that wolves and bears
watched over her at night
that creatures longed to be graced
by the warmth of her smile
by the gentle touch of her hand
they would say the water gave her life
a rebirth replenishing her being
this must have been true
for in the morning her clothes
were gone from the swimming hole
and she was back among us
auburn hair glistening
her skin pulsating with a faint blush
scented with magnolia blossoms
what one believes is not necessarily truth
but it is enough to believe
though I knew her in love
others did not so they simply believed
in the magic of the old swimming hole
in the mystery of this woman
to them it was enough
to believe in a mermaid

© 2010, Donald Harbour

Dissimulation

You are the water,
I am the oil.
I did not choose,
It was physics.
Science determined
Our spiritual existence,
Our passionate dysfunction,
The opposite repelled,
Neither rising or fallen,
Just separate, dissimilar.

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour