The Current Norm in Rainstorms

The short-lived downpours we experienced this past weekend reminded me of an earlier poem I had written. Enough rain fell to revive the weeds but not the grass. And still the land remains sun-baked.

The Current Norm in Rainstorms

A slash of sizzling light from the hand

of a bellicose warrior rampaging

across a raven sky rent the moonless

gloom. Lightsabers stormed.

Wrath overtook the streets, gushed

over curbs, rushed like brigand bots

spewing mayhem in a parched city

as mortals huddled behind bolted doors.

The dragoon, riding the wind, moved on,

rallying the weeds but leaving withered

grasses slammed by the downpour

and the air clammy as a damp kerchief

tossed as he withdrew.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

Transitions

Thoughts of my hometown saturate me at this point in time. Last summer I visited and will do so again this year before the snow flies.

Transitions

I

 

Miasma seeps across

the South Dakota state line.

Scant water tumbles over the falls

of my birthplace. The park no longer

an oasis in this hidebound town.

Our childhood neighborhood

now a collection of seedy houses

long in need of paint.

A hot, prairie wind blows

and I cannot breathe.

II

My brother's verdant acreage,

once a thought for spreading 

his ashes, now eaten by industry.

Talk of moving more remotely

peppered his speech

long before commercial creep.

Then came the CT scan.

The gravel road leading to his place

newly paved and renamed.

His mailbox and fire number, missed

by the bulldozer, cling to the edge

of the complex like faithful lookouts.

A farmer's field flows into the sunset

across the road. The cornstalks rustle

with the sound of a spirit sighing.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor