I'd Love To...

I remember looking out the back door, early on a summer's morning, when the sun's daybreak fire gleamed and sparkled from millions of dew drops on the grass. The desire to run barefoot through that shimmering sea of light tore at my heart, as I was forbidden to dance in the diamond light and soak my clothes or get my feet wet in the chilly dawn. The rules were clear and enforced. An adventure walking in cold rain led to pneumonia and a hospital stay. I learned.

There are so many things that, in my heart, I would love to do, to experience, to drink in. Yet, there is this small voice in the back of my mind, which warns me about letting go, about releasing preconceived notions about the world which exist to filter and buffer and protect. Nurture suppressing nature, I hesitate, and a moment is lost forever. Oh, I know there are a thousand urges and desires to fulfill, and a million wonders to experience — most of which are illegal, immoral, or fattening. Although my good sense and training restrains me from just letting go — the fact remains — I'd love to...

Mick

I'd Love To...

I'd love to play on the lawn,
But the grass is wet from morning dew:
Bright nervous tears shed at dawn,
By angels crying for me and you.

I'd love to stand in the rain,
But mother said I will catch a cold:
From teardrops falling in pain —
The sky depressed about growing old.

I'd love to jump in the snow,
But my boots will fill up with the stuff:
Memories frozen, to sow
Cloud-borne secrets grown heavy enough.

I'd love to walk with the wind,
But it's fingers will push me along:
Barristers sent, to rescind
Whispers voiced by its quicksilver song.

I'd love to lie in the sun,
But its hot touch will redden my skin:
Rivers of light swiftly run,
Softly warming where eddies sink in.

I'd love to shuffle through leaves,
But the wind will just blow them around:
Summer departs, Autumn grieves,
And their thick blanket covers the sound.

I'd love to listen to stars,
But the darkness calls to my spirit:
Music of the heavens jars
Loose the souls of all those who hear it.

I'd love to simply let go,
But I must surrender completely:
Allow my nature to show,
But my nurture simply won't let me.

Mick McKellar
November 2009

In Praise of Curmudgeons

Well, someone has to speak up for us old curmudgeons. Were it not for the groaning and growling, the moaning and howling of noisy old curmudgeons, who would bother to consider that anything at all was wrong? Someone must step up to mention that the latest teen heart throb seems to have the IQ of a turnip. Someone has to point out that the latest fashions are designed for skeletons and stick people. Someone has to tell everyone that the cup is half empty because there is a hole in the bottom.

I have been called a curmudgeon by some folks. Maybe.

Webster defines a curmudgeon as: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man. Other definitions include:

• An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions
• A surly or miserly person
• A crusty, irascible, cantankerous, old person full of stubborn ideas

Yeah, that's me -- although I prefer the adjectives sensitive, candid, and truthful. I guess it's all a matter of perceptions.

Mick

In Praise of Curmudgeons

I live in a world that may limit me,
Whether by custom, by fear, or by law,
If I don't try to be curmudgeonly -
Push others till their tempers are raw.
Although celebrity suffers a fool,
As long as charisma can pave the way
To the far, shallow end of the gene pool -
That swimmer has but a short time to stay.
For eventually that world will swell,
Past the darkling veil of hyperbole,
To touch the place where old curmudgeons dwell -
Who love beauty and creativity;
Who exhibit the wondrous quality,
Blending candor with great integrity.

Mick McKellar
November 2009

The Story of JOB

It is perhaps the most common story in our country now. For me, it was the loss of a companion who traveled with me more than 41 years. We met when I was but 15 years old, and we traveled together with but two interruptions: a one-month forced separation in 2004 and a brutally sudden separation in January 2009, enforced by economic woes and geographic challenges.

Since then, I have contacted and visited with many friends and acquaintances who tell me that, although they have searched, they cannot help me find my friend JOB. I am now attempting to meet and work with new friends, so that I can help them with their needs and they can help me get along without my old friend JOB. Still, I search for him, at least three times each week...

Mick


The Story of JOB

Twas mystical times in the distant past,
In the dark, shadowed winter of my life,
When my old friend, JOB breathed his very last
Breath, and his loss pierced like a hunting knife.
More than mere friends, we were compatriots,
Inseparable during waking hours;
Sharing so much time, folks thought I was nuts,
And soon, I would be pushing up flowers.

But dear old friends soon came to my rescue,
And they helped make my old friend disappear.
They showed me the door, and what I should do,
So the door didn't hit me in the rear!
Yet, within a month, I missed my old friend,
For he made me feel both strong and alive;
And I grieved that our friendship had to end,
For without his support, I could not thrive.

I vowed to search and to find him again,
But he is elusive, so hard to find
That my other friends grow embarrassed when,
My questing words bring his absence to mind.
They know that I miss him, it's in their eyes -
A deep shadow in the dark of the moon;
And I hear it so clearly in their sighs:
They all hope that I find JOB very soon!

Mick McKellar
November 2009

Something out of Nothing

Why are art and literature important to us and our growth as human beings? When we sculpt, when we paint, when we compose, when we sing, when we write a story, a lyric, or a poem — we create something out of nothing. What I love most about writing is reaching into the shadows in my mind and drawing forth an image to be described, a feeling to be shared, or a story to be told.

Best when shared for the first time and new to those who receive them, or better yet, are new to me as well — they seem to spring from deep inside — from places I have not visited or have no memory of visiting. They are creations: Children of my mind that spring from the only things I truly own: my thoughts, my memories, my feelings, and my imagination.

They can be triggered by the slightest thing, from a whisper to a shout, from the faintest touch to a slap upside the head — springing forth with the explosive energy of a sun gone nova or uncovered only by the patient efforts of a true believer — piece by piece and layer by layer. Is it just arrogance to believe then, that perhaps far within this process lies the gentle hands of a powerful partner — that the creator of the universe still inspires creation among his creations?

The rational mind says there is no proof that God's touch moves within and among us. Reason allows no belief where there is no hard evidence. Yet neither can reason allow for the spark of creation within the human mind, for there is no evidence of its source. There is no rationale for something out of nothing. And yet we create, we write, we sing, we paint, and we sculpt. There is joy in the gift of creativity, whatever its source.

I take solace and find both joy and peace in my arrogance, in creating something out of nothing.

Mick

Something out of Nothing

The faintest spark of light in blackest night,
A glimmer in the shadowed dusk of thought,
The merest feather touch of deep insight,
The dearest treasure that cannot be bought,
A movement in the corner of your eye,
A raindrop in an ancient silent pool,
A tiny speck of life high in the sky,
The sudden rise of wisdom from a fool,
The first time childish innocence asks why,
A single snowflake on a winter's eve,
A silent word that rises in the mind,
A story that your heart says to believe,
And you believe, in what you cannot find:
The touch of God, swiftly and silently
Inspires human creativity.

Mick McKellar
October 2009

Golden Light

A day like today is a gem in the autumn coronet of the year. Soft and warm after a cool and foggy overture, it soaks like warm water into the chilled and frosty soil. The brilliant sunlight sets the golden foliage ablaze and lends a softly orange and brown patina to drifting and falling leaves.

Autumn's chill touch has spread the earthly slumber of cold nights across the land, but must retreat from the fiery gaze of the sun as its rays churn across the fields. Its tendrils tease the sleeping land to rouse, to once again feel life in trunk and limb and blade and stem. And though I know it will last but a few thousand heartbeats, I cannot help but feel hope for the surging life of spring, after the long sleep of winter. Here, on the very threshold of bitter cold and long dark nights, summer dances its last dance for 2009.

Mick

Golden Light

I love these sunny autumn days so much,
For in their brilliant afterglow, it seems
They reawaken thoughts of summer's touch,
Upon my slumbering and dormant dreams.
That here on winter's threshold, I can chance
Upon a splendid shining sunlit day;
When chilly winds turn wicked warm, and dance
Among the drifting leaves they blow away.
My heart goes forth, where I don't think it should.
I wish these halcyon hours could endure,
And that an ardent mystic artist, could
Paint them in memory both swift and sure:
Breezy, soft, and solemnly sylvan bright -
October's glowing days of golden light.

Mick McKellar
October 2009

Island

I'm not entirely certain why John Donne's meditation popped up in my head tonight. I think it may have more to do with newspapers than nuanced pondering. We have been bludgeoned by bad economic news, frustrated by lack of solutions, and infuriated by political infighting for so long that some of us may feel the need to just drift away, across that sea of doubt and dismay, to a place insulated from the noise and (at least) seemingly under our control.

Hemingway's Islands in the Stream paints problematic pictures of those who seek idyllic isolation. Then the popular song lyrics sculpt an ideal landscape: Islands in the stream that is what we are. / No one's in between how can we be wrong? / Sail away with me to another world.

Simon and Garfunkel's I Am a Rock resonates with Keweenaw residents: A winters day / In a deep and dark December; / I am alone, / Gazing from my window to the streets below / On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. / I am a rock, / I am an island.

Perhaps the final words of their song strike closest to home for writers like me: I have my books / And my poetry to protect me; / I am shielded in my armor, / Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. / I touch no one and no one touches me. . . . And a rock feels no pain; / And an island never cries. In the Keweenaw, especially in the winter, it is easy to feel isolated from the rest of the planet -- despite the invasive news broadcasts and the constant links by Internet, phone, and cable. The sheer physical immensity of the snow, the cold, and the winds make you feel small and sealed away beyond a ocean of doubt -- in a frozen, white redoubt.

I guess it is the conundrum of human nature -- to seek isolation and yet be connected to one another -- "because I am involved in mankind." Tonight, I write from my island in the snow.

Mick

Island

I'm an island in an ocean of doubt,
My own little kingdom, where I'm the boss.
There are bridges in, and some bridges out;
I decide who's allowed to come across.
I also decide who's allowed to stay,
To visit, or take up their residence --
Until I tell them to just go away,
Or I let them stay, but behind a fence.
I dug the channel that keeps us apart,
For more control and to keep things cooler.
That ocean of doubt helps protect my heart,
For I used to be so peninsular.
"No man is an island," said old John Donne,
But I know better because I am one...

Mick McKellar
October 2009


John Donne
Meditation XVII: No man is an island...

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Dirt Clods and White Sound

Memories are quicksilver, tricky and shiny and always coming and going. I know not where they reside when they're not visiting me, and I'm not certain I want to go visit them. While daydreaming this afternoon, I was suddenly transported to the bedroom I shared with my three brothers on Crown Street in Westland, MI. It was the end of a long summer day and the last trailing flickers of green and golden twilight were tracing lines on the blue walls of the room.

I was on my side, my head aching and my hearing temporarily replaced by a hissing noise, a white noise that blocked the other sounds of our house. My brothers and I had been waging a dirt-bomb war with a group of neighborhood kids. Near our house was a gravel pit that also had large hills of clay soil -- sun-baked and crumbling into pieces just big enough to throw at each other. They would explode when they hit an object like a rock, a tree, a back, a leg, or a head.

I caught a high-arching clay grenade in the right ear and went down like a felled tree. I was about ten years old, and a casualty of the Cady Street Clay Wars. I walked home, but was sent to bed because my ear was full of dirt and I couldn't hear very well. Mom always cleaned our cuts, scrapes, and various and sundry wounds with hydrogen peroxide, which would foam and help cleanse them. With cuts and abrasions, this usually hurt like the dickens. How was I to know it wouldn't hurt to float dirt clods out of my ear?

Mick

Dirt Clods and White Sound

Long green shadows of twilight on the wall,
Flickered as the sun and clouds collided.
I felt Mom's footsteps -- heard nothing at all;
Nothing but hissing white sound, provided
By a clay-bomb smashing into my head,
And packing my right ear with dusty dirt.
Cool fingers probed my ear, swollen and red,
And I moaned to let her know that it hurt.
She turned me over and smiled in my eyes,
But I saw the brown peroxide bottle,
And the room filled up with my frightened cries,
As my siren roared up to full throttle.
While I squirmed, and I tried to get away
From the foaming touch of peroxide's sting,
She pinned my head on the pillow to stay
Put, and poured cold liquid into the thing.
I stiffened, preparing my shrieks and cries,
As I felt the foam and bubbles billow,
But pain never came, and before my eyes,
The dirt clods fell right out on my pillow.


Mick McKellar
October 2009