MFreeZone:DL Harris

REMEMBER

by
DL Harris

The old man parted the curtains of my dreams,
sending five thousand volts of shock to my brain.
His finger found his wrinkled lips,
the universal signal for silence.
"Come."
The words were a whisper of starlight.
Obediently, I arose and followed,
wondering what the neighbors would say
about me prowling the night mists
clad only in my boxer shorts.
The old man was a wraith,
a shadow within shadows,
nigh invisible in the darkness.
We turned into the forest,
and followed a thin brown ribbon,
winding up a steep, rocky tor
to a high cliff overlooking a waterfall.
As if on cue, the moon removed her cloud glasses,
and gentle beams welded themselves to the rocks.
He turned to face me now.
He was an Indian, incredibly ancient,
his dark eyes barely visible among the canyons of his face.
"I have much to teach you.
Observe, but do not speak."
A crooked forefinger pointed to the right.
From a hidden cave erupted blobs of grey fur,
eight in number,
which somehow morphed legs and a tail.
Wolf cubs!
I shrank back, but my guide shook his head.
"There is no danger. Watch."
A larger mass of silvery hair arose in the moonlight.
The great grey wolf threw back her head and howled.
Then she observed the cubs before her.
Their yelps and cries as they played
evoked little reaction from the adult.
Then a small cub produced a cry that rose above the others.
The she wolf was instantly alert.
Flashing into the tangle of small canines,
she rescued the tiny cub from danger.
The old man turned to me.
"This is your problem.
As long as you try to imitate others,
to merge with the crowd,
you will never succeed.
Others may never understand,
just as these small wolflings
know not why their mother should stop their play.
But this you must do."
The scene began a reverse pan
until I was back in my own bed, awake.
But from the open window,
I heard my guide again,
breathing one word into the darkness:
"Remember..."

TO WRITE A POEM

by
DL Harris

Poetry is a fire that burns in the soul,
touched off by the creative spark
of imagination,
like the spark of life
from the finger of God
to the finger of Adam
in Michaelangelo's masterpiece.

You never know just what may ignite the flames,
a memory, an experience, a feeling;
but once the process is engaged,
nothing on earth could stop the flow
of the words to the paper;
the intertwining nouns and verbs,
woven into a pleasing syntax--
something that will allow the reader
to experience the same emotions
that the writer is currently feeling...

DL Harris is 37 and is currently disabled due to chronic illness. He considers poetry writing to be an effective form of therapy at curing himself.

He has had poems accepted by over sixty publications. Some of them are:

POETALK,
PROSETRY,
THE AUROREAN,
THE POET'S ATTIC QUARTERLY,
and THE LOST LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA.