Tunneling

Marian tells me that my introductions are too long and that "people tune you out," when I ramble on. Henceforth, my introductions will follow my poems. Read on at your own risk...

Tunneling

I have spent most of my life tunneling,
Upwards, through layers and miles of debris.
Gathering knowledge and then funneling,
That raw data deep down inside of me.
Wanting to know why folks did what they did,
I strove to understand humanity;
While knowing danger that my pathway hid:
Such a quest could lead to insanity.
Despite awareness, I tunneled ahead,
Faster and faster, eager to learn more,
About people, whether living or dead,
And understand love, and hatred, and war.
Then I broke into, through layers of sand,
An ocean of stuff I don't understand!

Mick McKellar
February 2013


I have been spending a great deal of time just thinking. Actually, it is more like hunting and gathering, because so many of my memories are scattered, misfiled, or damaged -- probably due to the ravages of chemotherapy and long-term exposure to medications strong enough to twist my arm around and poke me in the eye. Some medications protect me from other medications and others just tend to slow down my mental gymnastics. Despite sporadic performance and the concomitant call for extra effort to overcome sluggish response, I continue with my avocation: trying to understand people.

Even as the evening news inundates me with images of violent actions, displays of rabid hatred, and evidence of our lust for power and control; my personal experience comforts me with images of acts of kindness, displays of undeserved affection, and evidence of our love for peace and freedom. Perhaps it is because these are extremes of behavior, that they break through the wall of noise that surrounds us and permeates our being. I think they used to call it the Madonna Effect: Only by being more outrageous will you be noticed. For 63 years, I have watched, listened, and taken notes. For 51 of those years, I have written about my observations in my poetry. One would hope that by mining such rich ore, the output would be golden. I suppose there are nuggets here and there, but to begin to understand humanity would require more than nine lives, and I am NOT a cat...

After tunneling through so much, I thought my recent brushes with the hereafter would lead me to deeper insights -- and I did have a breakthrough -- only to discover myself at the bottom of an ocean of stuff I don't understand...

Mick