A Hole in the Sky

I'll admit it: I am spoiled. The warmth of this September has lulled my winter warning system to sleep, with promises of warm and colorful days, followed by cool and comfortable nights. Open windows have permitted sleep with the whisper of mid-summer's blessings in harmony with the first harvest songs of summer's end. Bright, sunny days tell tall tales of long warm nights that now linger only in memory and seem to promise abundance they cannot deliver.

Twilight shadows come to visit earlier each evening, but carry only cool winds and billions of brilliant stars. That was the dream, drowned in the gray dampness of the first true fall morn, the shadowy billows of moisture laden clouds adrift upon a river of Canadian air. The low gray brows of the scowling sky frown down upon my up-raised eye, and a tiny prayer escapes upon a whispered cry...Lord, let the sun shine through a hole in the sky...

Mick

A Hole in the Sky

On a dreary Sunday, cold-pizza dawn,
An iron gray sunrise slaps the window,
Makes steely mud of the dew on the lawn,
And drives the rain like a wind-blown shadow;
To pierce window pane, and chill my old heart
With darkling thoughts of old man winter's song.
Though Autumn's paintbrush has had a fair start,
The icy-blue rain light makes it look wrong.
The air feels heavy as chilled, soggy sand,
Or cold, wet laundry piled high on my chest —
This is not the morning that I had planned:
The warm, sunny start to my day of rest.
Lord, please warm my heart and brighten my eye,
Let the sun shine through a hole in the sky!

Mick McKellar
September 2009

Time and Tradition

Understanding the need to reign in the ingrained desires to strike out when livelihood and survival are in jeopardy, does little to assuage the deeply-felt drives to provide and protect that are such a part of the human, and especially the male ego. Many men, myself included, were raised in the traditional system that taught us to judge our worth by how well we provide for our families and how well we can protect them from the elements, from attack, and from oblivion.

Knowing that collaboration, cooperation, and communication are fundamental attributes of the successful person in our current society does little to remove the urges arising from all those hours spent as a child learning and preparing to do battle with a hostile and uncertain world. Change is needed and it will happen, but it will take time to change, especially in a world that still holds dangers that may yet require us to test our mettle against aggression. It will take time to contain the drive to meet economic threats and even deprivation with that cold steel core which cries out to fight back with fists held high -- fueled by anger and fear.

Reason calls for its day in the sun and I hope we are all strong enough to grant its ascendancy.

Mick

Time and Tradition

My mind says I should talk.
My gut says I should fight.
But can I walk the walk
On paths I know are right?
The games I played in youth:
Always rough and tumbled -
Taught winning was the truth.
That losers will be humbled
On the sporting battlefield -
Where young men must excel,
And only weaklings yield;
And winners get to tell
The world that they are best!
Traditions long in-bred,
Are difficult to wrest,
From out the heart and head.

And now my world has changed,
My world-view modified;
My mind-set rearranged;
My prejudice denied.
But, I will need some space,
Some time, and yes, some slack.
For, though change runs apace,
My training holds me back:
I still need to provide;
I still need to protect.
Deep feelings I can't hide,
I'm certain to project.
I understand the needs,
To join the revolution,
But change will come at speeds
Of human evolution...

Mick McKellar
September 2009

Swim

I wondered what a dolphin must think of the frenetic advance of man upon the planet we share. Are they intelligent enough to make a judgment about us? Is their intelligence so much lower, or simply too alien for us to understand? Science is certain we are smarter, but science was also certain that there were canals on Mars and that nothing smaller than atomic particles could exist. Yet, we stand now on a higher soap box, and can see further over the wall. We talk of terraforming Martian landscapes we have seen through the cameras of probes we sent to investigate and of matter constructed of vibrating strings of energy.

Douglas Adams said, "Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons." Is there perhaps a grain of soggy truth in his whimsy? Do we need to examine our actions, our efforts, our lives with the liquid lens of the minds of aquatic mammals we find so amusing?

Perhaps the world would be a better place if we took time to eat more fish, play around more, and swim...

Mick

Swim

I swim free and answer to none at all.
I spring from depth and dance above the waves.
I greet the sun while spinning in free-fall,
And dive to frolic in deep green sea caves.
You pound the Earth with feet covered in dust.
You build your structures, reaching to the sky.
You drive machines that quickly turn to rust,
And then devour each treasure that you pry
From deep within the mother's mantle fair.
While you rend her dear heart and scar her face,
You foul the water and pollute the air,
Dancing the dark dance of death without grace.
While you make war, believing you must fight,
I swim down deep and fear you may be right...

Mick McKellar
September 2009

Water

It has been the wonder of my life that I am allowed to savor the liqueur, the small things, the daily cordial distilled from the mighty rush that inundates my mind. For it is in the details, in the tiny flecks of light that dance on the floor when summer morning light shimmers through the leaves and touches the dew on the window pane, and in the small sounds a loved one makes as her nightly dreams come to their sweet closure...in these and in the thousand thousand other whispers in the wind that I find the savory spice of my life.

Tonight, my throat parched and raw from a raucous rehearsal -- I filled a glass with simple, cool water and let the beautifully bland brandy of the sky slowly roll across my tongue and down my damaged throat. The feeling was exquisite -- Milton's luscious liquor in the raw -- aqua vitae for my tired and sleepy mind. Simple water -- simply wonderful!

Mick

Water

I sipped some ice-cold silver from my glass,
And let the lively liquid touch my tongue.
Its fragrance told me tales of wind-blown grass,
After the summer's storm song has been sung.
I tasted sky from which the fluid fell --
The flavor of the summer sun shined through,
A cloud-borne precious gift from Heaven's well,
That sparkled like the sunlight morning dew.
I slowly savored sips of nature's draught,
That flowed and floated, flooded, fell, and froze...
I thought of all this silliness and laughed,
Which forced my liquid treasure out my nose!
I loved it, though I choked, near fit to drown,
Because it tasted so good going down.

Mick McKellar
September 2009