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Hell Hounds and Heralds
“Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger,
comes dancing from the east.”--John Milton.
Harbingers come
in all sizes and
disguises.
They can alert us
to the shifting solstice,
a time to furrow,
or to lie fallow.
They are tricksters,
can be anything
or any one;
an action
or an adjective.
Walt Whitman used its ancient
calling--to harbinge,
--to lodge.
Back before the before,
when knighthood and the Crusades
were in vogue, they were often
squires, heralds and town criers.
During the Dark Ages, they came
fanged, as rats and reapers,
and death was their gift and embrace.
Sometimes they came as messengers,
and they were slain for their words.
At other times they might have been prophets,
and their sermon was both
celebrated and reviled.
A silver dollar flipping
in the air serves as one,
or a tangled barbed thistle
reclaiming things abandoned.
Even a deep-throated growl
can announce impending disaster,
or the devouring of an innocent.
Even God had to harbinge
Joseph and Mary in a stable of dung
when all accommodations
were filled with other pilgrims.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub
13 comments:
I like the way you start with something that sounds almost biblical - to furrow or lie fallow - and then circle back to it through the centuries.
I like the expansion on the notion of harbingers.
Harbingers are indeed tricksters - superstitious little beeps too. Thanks for this history lesson.
The angels sang to their king as did the prophets in the Old Testament. Harbingers do come in many varieties.
I'm just glad they are not currently killing people in my country for what we write and say, because I tend to have no filter, and would probably have been one of the first ones to go!! great write Glenn!
Nice work. I wonder if, in another lifetime, I lived under those dangerous conditions. We have tricksters now, too...wolves in sheep’s clothing..
We need harbingers of peace!
I like the way this poem begins with the musical internal rhyme ‘sizes and disguises’ in a short-lined short stanza and then grows. I love the ‘tangled barbed thistle / reclaiming things abandoned’ and the ‘deep-throated growl’ that can ‘announce impending disaster, / or the devouring of an innocent’.
Nice stanza: "Even a deep-throated growl
can announce impending disaster,
or the devouring of an innocent." And also the last stanza.
The veritas about harbingers --- many are their guises!
Some great description and history here too!
Oh... shooting the messenger... what a stark reminder of harbinger treatment.
Very engaging write Glenn, loved the variety of scenario...
Such a variety of harbingers! I like how you describe them in their variety of guises. That's a lovely line from Milton, too.
harbingers can be tricksters so we must keenly observe their approach - a most delightful and informative poem to me Glenn
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