The Dawn of Dreams

 

Twilight steals across the canal,
As the last red rays of day fade.
And night's curtain descends.
Soon is the dawn of dreams.

Whispers of Winter whirl about,
Our house glows under clouds of rose,
In skies of robin's egg blue, and
I snuggle for warmth with hot tea,
And the summer love of family.

The canal glimmers -- a silver ribbon,
Its surface rippling with secrets.
Memories of golden daffodils,
Flames to ignite the fading landscape.
Their petals flutter and dance,
A celebration of fleeting beauty.

Winter's wind, a mischievous spirit,
Weaves through ancient branches,
And carries the scent of pine and frost,
A promise of snow-kissed mornings.
Our home trembles, a ship at sea,
Its timbers creaking in harmony.

And there, by the fireside glow,
We gather—the heartbeats of kin.
Laughter ripples -- spilled sunlight,
Warming our souls against Winter's chill.
In this cozy haven, love blooms eternal,
A fragrant bloom in the garden of time.

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Enjoy Your Joy

What do you do when you're getting old,
When your blood is thin and your butt is cold?
What do you do when your left leg aches,
When you scratch an itch and a fingernail breaks ?
What do you do when your memory,
Is as slow as treacle but thin like tea?
What do you do when your new “trick” knee,
Turns “proud and elegant” to wobbly?
What do you do when your mellow voice,
Becomes a scratchy, wheezing noise?
The indignities of senior life,
The signs of wear and aging strife,
Cannot delete, cannot deprive,
Your joy because you’re still alive!

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Night gives way to gray

Night gives way to gray
Naked arms pierce white blanket
The Sun shines somewhere

 

Poem by Mick McKellar
Photo by Sandy Lapeer

Human Resources

It seems a lifetime ago I managed the benefits programs for Michigan Technological University. When I started there, the department was known as Employee Relations. The name had a friendly, personal tone that made one part of a relationship with employees - people. During my tenure there, the department came under new management, and with it came a name change to Human Resources. I fought against this name change, because it sounded impersonal and seemed to reduce employees from people to resources - essentially, numbers in a spreadsheet.

When people become resources, it facilitates the use of all those pretty equations MBAs learned in business college, and it makes it possible to analyze, prioritize, and finalize numbers to optimize, downsize, and right-size an organization by remote control...from the sterile and protected world of resource management. Enter the numbers into the spreadsheet, hit the Enter button, and Exit the world of employee relations.

Numbers, however, can lie -- just as pictures can lie -- lies of omission. It is simply not possible at our level of knowledge - of either technology or humanity - to distill all that a person brings to a job, to an organization, into a number. Organizations are living things, and the people who work there are organs - living parts of a living organization. Would you suggest scheduling surgery on a patient, based only on what one can glean from a spreadsheet? I would not. Yet organizations undergo radical employee-ectomies every day, often solely to balance a number on a spreadsheet. Think about it.

Mick

Human Resources

High on the mountain, the air's pretty thin -
The view is great, but everything's small.
The tiny people are pawns, spent to win,
And they hardly seem to matter at all.
That's why the HR Conversion takes place,
And people become human resources -
Just simple numbers that don't have a face,
A voice, a vote, or any recourses.
When tough decisions must be quickly made,
It becomes easier just to define
Them as just moves in a game to be played:
A game to be won at the bottom line.
But it's not a battle on a board game,
And to treat it as such would be a shame.

Mick McKellar
January 2008

Liberty

I love to breathe the fresh air of freedom,
To walk where I want, without any reason,
And to run when I feel a surge of joy;
Know that sharing joy is never treason.

Breathing free is a joy that fills my soul,
With gratitude for the wonder of life,
To climb countless stairs and not lose my voice,
Nor feel the edge of hypoxia's knife.

I want to walk without limits or bonds,
To feel adrenaline and dance with glee;
Have a healthy body and peaceful mind.
The liberty to be free to be me.

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Survivor Stands Strong

 

Winter storm was long

Wind and snow sing Evensong

Survivor stands strong

Poem by Mick McKellar

Photo by Sandy Lapeer

When Winter Took a Rest

When Winter took a rest,
And let the Autumn reign,
Northwest winds, fast and strong,
Fair swept the land with rain.

Autumn sped quickly by,
Powered by cruel winds,
Left behind a trail of gold,
And whispered to its friends.

November days were warm,
When sunshine glimmered bright;
Light snow came and went so quick,
That Christmas had no white.

Gifts given nonetheless,
Showed some both love and care,
Hope that peace and joy would come,
With the New Year to share.

January brought snow,
But also saw it go.
Winter seemed to lose its grip,
Let Springtime start to grow.

People, preoccupied
With polls and presidents,
Missed the beauty all around,
And lost their common sense.

When Winter took a rest,
It let the Autumn stay,
Gave the world a gentle push,
But they just looked away.

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Prepare2Sleep

 

Winter sun sinks deep
Twilight flows from distant reef
Life prepares to sleep

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Emailing Myself to Heaven

Please find my soul attached, oh Lord,
Your servant has grown oh, so tired.
I used the compression onboard,
And my connection is hard-wired!

I checked myself for viruses,
And used a competent program.
My name is in your addresses;
Don’t let me go to Spam.

Don’t Forward me to You know where,
But decompress my file above.
Just download me to Heaven there,
And file me under “Love.”

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Soft Silence

Today was not a day for talking.
I grumbled and fumed and fussed with fervor,
And ultimately found I was stalking
A song of silence, long an observer,
But not a passionate true partaker.
Not a songbird’s breath of freshening air,
Not a fiery volcanic Earth shaker,
Nor a stone-faced hypocrite, judging there.
A soul long denied the sweet gentleness,
And golden peace that flows from soft silence;
To hear patter of raindrops, and to guess
If falling on rooftop, flowers, or fence.
To hear the soft sound of snowflakes kissing
The Earth, instead of unending hissing!

Mick McKellar
February 2024

Cerulean Mind

A poem blossoms in my mind to praise,
A lake that fills my wintry heart with awe,
But you are far away and could not gaze
Upon the glacial wonders that I saw.

As I walk the Lake Superior shore,
I feel the coldness of the bitter breeze;
Waves all sparkle in their crystal splendor,
 A thousand jewels in the Winter frieze.

I marvel at the beauty of this scene:
The contrast of the blue and white and gray,
The silence of the lake, calm and serene,
The solitude of this secluded bay.

I think of how the seasons come and go,
The mirrored lake reflects the changing sky,
And dream of what the future has to show;
What wondrous wonders wait to catch my eye.

As on I walk along the frozen shore,
And marvel at the sculptures icy, stark,
I seek what icy nature has in store
For those who brave such snowy cold and dark.

Dancing on an ancient pale blue mirror,
Traversing the bright cerulean mind,
Each new frigid breath I take is clearer,
Than any of the ones I left behind.

I feel a surge of mystery and wonder,
And a touch of melancholy too,
To witness this bleak sub-arctic splendor,
And wish that I could share it all with you.

Mick McKellar
February 2024