Ancestors

At crossroads, we are taught to look all ways before moving forward -- primarily to avoid being hit by a great purple bus that somehow avoided detection. At our critical, mystical crossroads, the turning points in our lives, we also look all ways -- especially backwards to see if our ancestors left any helpful life-lessons lying about on the roadway from our past. For so many years, I could depend on whispers from mother and father, echoing across the years since they departed, giving me advice on each new step along the road. However, as the road has lengthened, their voices have become stretched until they are mostly no longer detectable without a special effort on my part to seek them out.

However, as the voices drift ever onward toward silence, misty and hazy images from long ago come into ever sharper focus, as though vision were compensating for loss of sound. Memories of family reunions, weddings, funerals, and anniversaries flood my mind with images that are missing both the soundtrack and the cast list. I can see their smiles, but I cannot tell if they are laughing with me, or at me...

Mick

Ancestors

My mind reaches back to touch your spirit,
And breaching the rift between now and then,
Senses your voice, though I cannot hear it
As once I did, but can't remember when...
I resonate with your silent heartbeat,
Calm reassurance that memory brings,
Of feeling a circle closing, complete
At remembered family gatherings:
Swift visions of those faces and voices,
So long divorced from relation or name,
Leave me to search unlimited choices,
That slowly converge till all look the same.
Facing the past, I stand tiptoe to see,
All my ancestors, smiling back at me.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Reasons

I've always considered myself a reasonable, rational, reasoning being. Like everyone, I want my world to make sense and to offer a measure of comfort and security. With each news broadcast and with each article I read, I am given reasons to worry, reasons to fear, reasons to run and hide from all the chaos and from the chorus of angry voices. The negativity, anger, and evil are overwhelming if taken at face value, if accepted as the only reality of our age.

Each day, as I review the litany of loss before my eyes and in my ears, I consider the results of blind acceptance and reject those results as not certain...as a self-defeating prophesy. I remember that prophets of doom have always been with us, and despite their despite, the power that created all continues and the love that made us lives on, in us and all around us.

Mick

Reasons

There's a thousand good reasons to be sad,
Sit and cry...
Every one of them is wrong,
For they only bring sad endings to our song.

There's a million good reasons to be mad,
Can't deny...
And yet none of them are right,
For they only cause the best of us to fight.

There's a billion good reasons to be bad,
Want to die...
Not a single one is true,
For they only keep us all from loving You.

My world is not a simple place,
The tides of my future shift and slide,
But with a measure of Your grace,
I'll have no reasons left to want to hide!

There's only one good reason to be glad,
It's no lie...
And it's the truth everywhere,
Our world exists because Your love is there.

And that is my simple morning prayer.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

Death of a Generous Spirit

There are times I can hardly recognize the old man in the mirror. Just six short months of searching for work and finding only souls more worried than I am about the future, have left an empty cavern, deep inside, where a generous spirit once burned brightly. The once nearly weightless responsibility for supporting my family, so easily borne and haughtily carried, has become a dread companion, a shadowy reminder of arrogantly sunny days gone dark with the threat of misfortune and lack.

As I struggle to meet each new day with a smile on my face and to keep hope alive and faith burning somewhere in the deep -- a silent prayer for freedom from the fear of failure -- I still feel the vast emptiness where a once generous (if a bit thrifty) spirit dwelled in uneasy harmony with my more practical Scottish heritage. I mourn its demise and I pray for its rebirth.

Mick

Death of a Generous Spirit

What happened to my old impulse to share?
I looked, and I can't find it anywhere...
When fortunes changed, and abundance drifted
Away on the tides, my outlook shifted
From focus on bounty to fear of dearth,
Giving Dicken's old Scrooge a second birth --
Tipping the balance to hoard each penny,
Spend only for me, and not share any.
It hurts me almost more than I can bear,
Each time that I bypass a chance to share;
Dark shadows cry constantly in my head,
That the times are tough and sharing is dead.
My heart grieves so, I can't bear to hear it,
For the death of a generous spirit.

Mick McKellar
August 2009

August Eaves

It's morning, or at least I think it is morning. The almost-frigid fingers of the late-August wind touch my face, seem to promise the long twilight of autumn that leads only to the longer sleep ahead. It seems too soon to be feeling this chill touch and hearing the earthy song of summer's end. Our dusty, haughty, distant summer sun did little to warm old bones nor did bright summer clouds do much to soak the parched soil with the nectar of the sky. Yet, here at the peak, when summer's reign should be supreme, the northern winds cry bitter tears upon the leaves and on the roof, to drip steadily from astonished August eaves...


Mick

August Eaves

Rivulets run from the edge of the eaves,
Splash on the puddles and soak falling leaves.
Cold-shower breezes move curtains aside,
Probe with cold fingers from which I can't hide.
Summer's warm voice is nowhere to be found,
And rich with the loamy smell of the ground,
Autumn's dark baritone whispers its song -
Barely heard now, for it does not belong
In Summer's not yet defeated domain,
Should not be hiding in soft summer rain,
Or whispering down from gray leaden skies -
Chanting its promises, secrets, and lies.
Silent remain till it colors the leaves,
And let the summer rain drip from the eaves...


Mick McKellar
August 2009

Nightsong

Do the stars sing? I swear that on winter evenings, calm and clear, a crystal whisper echoes in my ear and I can hear the song of the stars across the barren blackness. Angel voices have been heard from the midnight skies by many who search the heavens for wisdom, or insight, or just reassurance that in all that expanse of shadow and stardust, their tiny flame burns brightly enough to be noticed and treasured.

I have tried to reach out with my spirit, aflame with the need to touch the abyss and know it is not empty, and to hear the nightsong once again — the crystal chorus that ties me to the burning giant, tiny specks of light, twinkling in the night...

Mick

Nightsong

The cry my heart screams, roars in silent tears —
A sigh of fire for scores of silent years.
My thoughts explode, a stabbing brilliant light,
A nova bright, unnoticed in the night.
None come near me, for they can sense the beat
Of heart-fired bellows, generating heat
That thousand suns, in universal fear
Of death of light, can't bring the nightsong near
To where I stand. And silently, I cry —
For upturned eyes search countless halls of sky,
To find the meaning, find the whispered song,
And, in the dark, my heart can sing along.

I seek the nightsong, the music of the air;
The Muse's voice upon the wind up there.
An ancient music — echoes in the mind,
An ageless music lovers sometimes find,
When in the arms of soft and shadowed night,
They dance the dream of their pure love's delight.
And, on occasion, writ in star-lit skies,
The dream appears before the poet's eyes.
But, not tonight — I shall not get my chance,
To race the light and dance the dreamer's dance.
I burn too brightly, seething with the flame
That seeks the nightsong, calls its ancient name...

Perhaps tomorrow's nightly dew and damp,
Will quench my fire and shade my fiery lamp,
And far from TV, game shows, cars and bars —
I'll hear the nightsong music of the stars!


Mick McKellar
August 2009

Shine

Shakti Gawain said: "Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it." Though I may challenge the concept that evil has no real substance of its own, I cannot fault her insight regarding the best weapon against it.

Even those evils that strike in daylight have their genesis in the shadows and draw sustenance from the night. The economic tragedies that plague us have grown from the moldy shadows in the minds of men and women whose plans hatched in the dim and secret conclaves powered by greed and avarice. The bombings, the beatings, the full panoply of inhumanity portrayed daily in the media are the foliage and fruits of secret gardens, planted in the shadows and succored by the night. It is in our nature to provide the growth medium -- for on the sunniest day, even the most upright and righteous among us will cast a shadow.

There can be no light without darkness and no substance without a shadow, yet all hope is not lost, for we need only vigilantly shine our own light upon those shadows and force them into retreat. We need only shine...

Mick

Shine

Shadows persist near the edge of my day,
Out on the fringe, where the darkness dances.
When I scream and fight, they won't go away -
Frustrating, under the circumstances...
I've heard that the Devil is in the dark,
And that evil lurks just beyond the light,
That the power of evil, strong and stark,
Like shadow, is powered by darkest night.
Great power of arms offers no redoubt,
Blood, sweat, and tears offer no victory,
Yet, sweet is the savage joy that I shout,
As I bring to bear secret weaponry!
I can encompass the shadows' defeat:
When I shine a light, the shadows retreat.

Mick McKellar
June 2009

The Interview

Are job interviews good for the soul? Is it possible to have an out-of-body experience, right in the middle of interview question number three? Why is it that, despite having done umpteen job interviews over nearly a half-century, I still get as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?

The answers to these tough questions are: I hope so; it had better be (or I am hallucinating); and I guess it's just a mystery...

Now, I'm not saying that this has happened to me personally, but I have a 59-year-old, unemployed friend who has been out of work since January and desperately wants to do a great job on each scarce employment interview. He told me of his recent interview experience, and of the three-ring circus that was performing in his head throughout the entire process. Now, sit back, relax, put your tongue firmly in your cheek, and get ready to commiserate!

Mick

The Interview

This is not my very first interview,
And I know exactly what I should do!
As I walk in the door, I check my breath.
(So it will not cause a reviewer's death.)
I slide my left hand over my grey hair,
To check that what's left is "hangin' in there."
I look down at my pants, and I'm hopin'
That I didn't leave the zipper open.
I look at my hands and turn very pale:
Can that be dirt under my fingernail?
As I say "Hello," the panel smiles back,
And I start praying my voice doesn't crack.
I'm wearing a coat and the room, so warm,
Makes my forehead leak like a thunderstorm...
With each new greeting I have to utter,
I feel terrified that I might stutter,
Stammer, or sputter all over the place --
Or worse, gleek in an interviewer's face.
Can they hear my composure's mewling cries,
Or see the dark terror in my brown eyes?
I finally sit, with knees quaking,
And fold my hands, so they will stop shaking.
They ask a question, and I think, in fright:
"Did I just pronounce my own first name right?"
As questions come faster, I think with dread:
"I can't let my thoughts race too far ahead!"
Three seconds later, they all stand and smile.
I stand and shake hands, thinking all the while:
"Although I know I was not daydreaming,
Somehow I managed to miss the whole thing!"
Then I'll wonder, as I walk out the door:
What was the job I just interviewed for?


Mick McKellar
June 2009