Roof of the World

I rise early, so that I can greet each day as it arrives. I know I have a finite number of them to spend on this planet, and I mean to meet each one at very first light, and enjoy each one until darkest night.

I was up long before first light today, and arrived at work as the sun broke over the far horizon. Sometimes, the weather and the geography of the land conspire to trap fluffy white clouds below an inversion layer in the valley surrounding the Portage Canal. On these rare and wonderful mornings, I can look down from Quincy Hill and see the clouds trapped in the valley, filling it brimful of brilliant sun-lit sky-stuff. On these mornings, it feels like I stand on the roof of the world...

Mick

Roof of the World

I shivered there, in the early morn chill,
As Winter's touch penetrated my coat;
Exposed to the wind on an open hill,
With the valley below my castle's moat.
From my parapet, I surveyed the land,
Shrouded below in a blanket of white,
Touched by the Architect's powerful hand,
With billows of fluffy, wintry samite.
While the burning torch of the rising day,
Hung in the heavens, a lantern of gold
To illuminate Autumn's shadowed way,
Toward Winter's dark prison of ice and cold,
I felt the banner of my soul unfurled -
Watching sunrise on the roof of the world.

Mick McKellar
October 2007