Wild Woods

More than once this past winter I found myself staring from a cabin window and letting my imagination rule. The scene that engrossed me wasn't nearly as entertaining with the coming of warm weather. 

Wild Woods

In the wildwood a fallen tree

     suggests a baby dino

or maybe a funky black rhino

pausing before a crossing.

Snowfall cloaks the creature's

back and brow. Or maybe it's

the prow of Paul Bunyan's

canoe, even his misplaced shoe.

A golf club thrown in frustration

or the front of a wiener dog

escaping a tangled situation.

Conceivably, a croc surfacing

from the frosty thicket. Maybe

the emergence of a hefty cricket.

Illusions firmly planted in drifts

   of the mind, a make-believe 

 pastime until harbingers of spring 

                start to sing.  

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Looking Glass Blues

It's been almost a year since my favorite stylist hung up her scissors. And still I search for someone to keep my short hair neat and trim.

Looking Glass Blues

She promised me a pixie haircut

But delivered a deranged elf effect.

It made no difference how hard I tugged,

Sawed-off bangs taunted me, haunted me.

Resembling a deranged elf, I searched

For solace in an enchanted pond and cringed

At the butchered bangs abusing me.

The stunted strands refused to stretch.

No fairytale transformation at hand.

Tried to bury my hair beneath a headband

But the stunted strands popped free.

Sighing, I decided, "It could be worse."

Restyled it and a scarecrow appeared.

Knowing time alone would address this mess,

I kept telling myself, "It could be worse,"

And fervently wished to hide inside.

I knew in time my bangs would behave

And it made no difference how hard I tugged.

If only I had been able to hide inside

With this botched promise of a pixie haircut.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor   

Scourge

It's pleasant to walk the country roads around our cabin, but warmer weather brings irritating black flies to contend with. That one 80 degree day we recently enjoyed? When I went walking I met with a contingent of their sibs, not nearly as big but just as irksome.

Scourge

Flies arranged as relay runners,

like the latest lineup of backbiting

politicians, hound me, wreathe

my head, assault my ears, slip under

my visor, and flash past my eyes.

Swearing, I swat at the tormentors

chewing my hide. The lowlands

loom. Prime breeding ground

for mites and nasty sound bites.

"Bug Off" spray simply seems

to rankle them. My only hope:

a stiff breeze to blast them 

into oblivion. Keep them at bay.

Even a passing pickup sends

the pests scrambling. But like

politicos on pause defending

past actions, they soon resume

their swarming.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Spring Saplings

Shortly after we moved into our "new" cabin in 2019, we planted two young crabapple trees of differing varieties. Here is their story so far.

Spring Saplings 

A comical brush-like crabapple

boasting straight-up branches

now buried in springtime blossoms

droops after last night's storm,

top heavy with fuchsia tints.

Across the yard, savaged by winter

and ravenous deer, a half-sib clings

to scant buds streaked shell-pink.

Undaunted, this fledgling

dressed in gossamer thin greenery

tucks the few florets into her hair,

charming as Cinderella.

Offspring of kindred stock,

one thrives and the other struggles.

In fairytales the downtrodden

triumph, stepsisters fade away, forgotten,

and Bambi doesn't shred young trees.

But these two dwell in a proper forest

where work boots trump glass slippers,

and pumpkins remain vehicles for pies.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor