Keweenaw Spring

January's a long year,
February is dark.
March is full of snow fear,
April's so damn stark.
May will tease us often,
June's rain bugs will bring.
When July's winds soften,
Maybe we'll get Spring!

Mick McKellar
February 2019

I first saw a meme today which said: "January is a long year."

Mick

Colloquy

The fire in my belly grows dim.

My chill flesh remembers

Bright embers, within.

Yet, as memory fades,

As the spark we fed

With each hungry breath

Drifts near death;

Famished, urgent, wishing

For the heartfelt touch of another mind,

For the God-food of intuition,

For the fuel of cognition;

We hurtle, to hie to conflagration,

And flare into wildfire of repartee.

We sing a song of solitude,

And lend loneliness its long farewell.

Mick McKellar

January 2019

Solitude is sitting silently in a boat on a sea of friends.

Loneliness is sitting on a yacht in a vast, empty parking lot.

Mick

Each Road is a Wall

When roads rise up and seek to block our way,
When forceful flowers grow and bar our path,
When shrieking wind demands to have its say;
We'll taste the bitterness of Earthen wrath.
Too long ignored, the death of common sense,
Let slip the fantasy of greed's sweet taste:
A recipe that profit beckons, hence
The surfeit's rise in toxins, trash, and waste.
When life itself is bartered on the scale,
And children caged to bargain on the floor,
The Earth itself, enraged beyond the pale,
Will rise in judgment, crying out: "No more!"
Don't think to run...and thus avoid the test:
Each road is a wall, lain down for a rest.

Mick McKellar
January 2019

Some actions are so heinous that the Earth itself may take note and endeavor to remedy the situation.

Mick

January Snow

The breath of Winter's frozen heart released.
Shifting, sonorous, soft blanket of death,
Your grasping samite desert unappeased,
As all fall prey to creeping icy breath.
Your susurration sings of silent sleep,
And icy dreams cascading through the night.
Your shifting dunes on silent cat paws creep,
To sift and drift o'er landscapes lost from sight.
You fill the land -- a vast and soundless sea;
As muted, faint, and hushed, your rivers flow --
And dammed, your frost spray stings, when passing me
On winter winds that always seem to blow.
Your coverlet of frigid, frozen fleece,
Gives all about an icy sense of peace.

Mick McKellar
January 2019

I said to myself: "Say something nice about snow!" Imagine my surprise when I received a reply...

Mick

Shall We Prey?

White is the winter of twenty-nineteen,
Wherein the wolves -- pale polemics faint hide.
Dancing in gales grey and circling unseen,
Gauging what cover the news squalls provide.
Gone are old coordinated swift strikes.
Gone are lost chances to weather the gale.
Gone are discussions and simple dislikes.
Truth is prey predators swiftly assail.
Blinded by silvery frost from the skies,
As wisdom whispers insight with a hiss;
Torn in the tempest, the whisper soon dies,
Caught in the monochromatic abyss.
Frightened to death, hear humanity cry,
Left in the dark as the maelstrom roars by.

Mick McKellar
January 2019

I sense that we, the people, are under attack and as I read the news, I see only storm clouds and shadows of fear.

Mick

Greatest Challenge

The sun and the moon, the stars in the sky,
Silently watch our small lives in their wonder;
And hardly notice an age going by,
Taking no notice of rain or thunder...
The battering storm, the flooding of soil,
Sings a cry of terror, a bloodless shout --
And unheard among the carnage and spoil,
The gasping sigh of a life snuffing out.
Tenacious, we struggle, weather the gale,
Climb from the mud with both patience and grace;
And face to the wind, unwilling to fail,
The universe watches the human race,
As into its greatest challenge it delves:
A terrible foe: we battle ourselves.

Mick McKellar
December 2018

As the year rolls out, I wonder if we realize who we will battle for the right to exist.

Mick

Keweenaw Carol

I sing a carol of Keweenaw,
I dance alone in my mind.
Never, not ever may I withdraw,
Silently seeing the silence I saw,
Feeling the fun that I find,
Dancing alone in my mind.

I mine a myriad of milestones,
I lay awake in the dark.
Heir to stale air filled with homophones,
There to steal steel from their two bones:
Gladness and sadness give spark,
Just to walk and to talk in the dark.

I'm a glad river of memories,
I smile to purvey pure daylight --
Sparkling and rippling through evergreen trees,
Diamond dust shining on cold winter breeze,
A dose of delight in silence so white,
An antidote to long, lonely night.

A reminder that joy is so near,
I carol that Christmas is here!

Mick McKellar
December 2018


I sing songs in my head. And the best part? In my head, I'm always on key!

Mick