Command Performance

I would love to say this was inspired by a live performance sometime in my past. But, no, a magazine photo captured me, and that set me to thinking.

Command Performance

She is royalty in striped leggings,

I can tell by the tilted crown

on her head. Standing there

on a little green chair, her clear

soprano fills the enfolding space.

Before her the freckle-faced

conductor commands

a baton big for small hands

with great-hall bravado,

a bit sweeping for the sweet

voice that follows its own pace,

befitting a proper princess.

No matter. The conclusion still

brings bows and giggles, curtain

calls and clapping.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Squirrel at the Bird Feeder

Anyone who feeds the birds in wintertime has to reckon with squirrels, and they can prove to be ingenious in their endeavors to master bird feeders.

Squirrel at the Bird Feeder

Arms folded and standing upright on the snowy deck railing, he fixed me with the unblinking stare of a gambler analyzing his opponent. On second thought, the rodent resembled more of a plump cowpoke chewing over a problem. I could almost hear the whirring of small scale cogs in his nut sized brain as he planned a course of attack for the "ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET!" behind him.

Like an unexpected gust of wind, the fluffy tailed miscreant whipped down to the ground and attempted to shinny up the pole, but couldn't get a grip. Kept sliding backwards. He either a) failed the gym class in rope climbing or b) scrapped his Weight Watcher's plan.

In either case, he would have never won an athletic competition even among friends.  He simply couldn't muster a strong performance. Not to mention the chub factor. Or so I thought. Ten minutes later I freaked at the sight of him in the middle of the tray, shoveling in the treats, fat rump towards me as my tea kettle raged behind me.

Window banging and a shriek of profanity hot as the pot roiling on my stove grabbed his attention. The brute vaulted off the feeder like a gymnast with a perfect, if untimely, dismount. That's when two of his buddies moved into my sights. They appeared to be judging his overall performance, certain they could do better. The pair scaled the pole like seasoned stuntmen as the demented lady, once again, bellowed behind the glass pane. Granted, pounding on the table added to the din, prompting those two to leap to the ground. But it also promised a beast of a bruise.

Tube of grease in my throbbing hand, I marched into the cold. Metal rod waiting. Birds observing. Squirrels reconnoitering. Opening battle to me. Flushed with success, I felt energized as Napoleon on his way to conquer the world.

And we all know how that played out.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Storm Hype 101 (Prof. Chicken Little)

This week local TV meteorologists are absorbed in talking about our extended cold stretch. They entertain us with dire possibilities all while smiling broadly like the impresarios they are. But sometimes the weather, itself, calls them out.

Storm Hype 101 (Prof. Chicken Little)

Meteorologists in San Diego

need not apply.

Nor those in Tornado Alley

or hurricane locales since adrenaline

drives a crash course.

But weathermen/women in the snow belt

welcome to register and master

the minutia of forecast fever.

Learn the art of reporting an initial

warning in the muted tones

of a mourning dove auguring,

"Snowmageddon is riding in

from the Rockies."

Study the subtle tricks of voice

intensity, growing louder 

like a locomotive drawing nearer

until the din of disaster saturates

the station.

                         *

Trailing a predicted blizzard,

dawn sometimes reveals a pristine 

counterpane only a plump comforter deep.

Henny Penny and henchmen

now quiet as the night's snowfall.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Gone

This has been a disorienting year. COVID pulled the rug out from underneath us, people have died both from the virus and for other reasons, and usual routines have been upended. These thoughts played in my mind as I gazed through a predawn window high above the city, recently.  

Gone

Disconcerting

not to locate a familiar structure

on the horizon. A landmark

disappeared.

An emptiness,

a shift in perspective, a deletion

tugging.

In reality, fogginess blankets

the night and dissolves

solid buildings into nothingness.

I know daytime sunshine

will reveal the missing architecture,

erase this mistaken loss.

But across town my daughter-in-law

holds only memories and pictures

of her deceased father

buried a COVID world away

                                        without her.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor