Winter Reckoning

Take it from me, do not put your mobile phone in your back packet when going out for a walk in winter conditions. Yes, this poem is a repeat but apropos for the season.

Winter Reckoning

Once, I would have shown off

my bruises, badges of honor

bestowed by harsh winters.

Now, I wish to avoid talk

                      of broken bones

from icy sidewalks and grass

slippery as glass.        Or

                              the advice

to hike the halls of shopping malls.

          Boring as a treadmill.

Like a kid, I hid

              shin-swirls of blueberry

under my jeans until a pedicurist

spied them, evidence

of a misstep into a klutzy fall.

A balm of words bubbled-up,

           soothing as the warm water

                                massaging my feet.

Sympathy in a nail salon. What took

me so long?     The indignities

                   already past their peak. 

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Open Question

It's always dicey flying in winter in snow country. The recent Christmas delays because of bad weather had me thinking back to another "fingers crossed" flight.

Open Question

My visitors pace, radar concerns.

Only star-shine and frostbite lace

these windows, but lake effect snow

forecast to the east.

Christmas week played out.

Time to reverse the sleigh, fly back

through the night.

The winter storm musters,

casting shadows across packed bags

and family members, weather apps

and advancing clocks.

Happy chatter from the youngest,

but the rest sit in silence. All caught

in thoughts of "What if . . .?"

until their flight gets a green light.

Umpteen fingers crossed as they lift

towards Orion, including this grandma here

and the other grandma there.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Newgrange

I will leave you with a Solstice Poem instead of a Christmas one, and see you in the New Year. Happy Holidays!

Newgrange

In late December

on crystal Irish mornings

a shaft of light will sweeten

a cave-like structure mounded

millennia ago by people like us.

Not for them endless moaning

about black nights

seeping into foreshortened days.

Rather, an undertaking to construct

an outsized earthen sanctuary

honoring light and life to come,

a dwelling for a burst of sunbeams

during the year's nadir.

Master builders these stone age

farmers, these Paleolithic artisans,

these Druids disdainfully dismissed

as primitives focused on the dark arts.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Toll

Last week there was an all day snowstorm at the cabin. It buried the seed left out for the birds that over-winter in the north country.

Toll

Winter weather drives

the hefty bell in nearby trees

as I hang a tray of seed

in stinging pre-dawn darkness.

The filmy veil of sunup reveals

a swirl of snow burying the mix.

I tell myself descendants

of dinosaurs know how to dodge

the blows of Borealis.

The frozen buffet bothers me

more than it does the birds.

Or maybe guilt over my neglect

of their dwindling numbers

stabs like extinction.

And in the air, a muffled knell

for a ripple turned tsunami.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Northwoods Sunday

Autumn at the cabin has taught me some people see no need to wait for hunting season. Need I say more?

Northwoods Sunday

Quiet as an empty church

without congregants.

Party-going crickets, leftovers

from an all-nighter, hum in their cups.

A coiled snake on a paver soaks up

contentment.

Remnants of faraway forest fires

cloud the vault.

Unseen midnight deer strip

crabapple branches bare.

Notes of geese flying high haunt

in the air.

Rifle retorts shatter my reverie,

flip-flop my stomach

in this cathedral without sanctuary.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Navigating London

I'm off to Singapore early tomorrow which had me thinking about my last trip to London. Masks were still mandated and became uncomfortable after wearing one for several hours. Thank goodness the flying time was under ten hours. Unlike what awaits me come the morning.

Navigating London

Power walking with and without

the pooch: small terrier with a big

personality, a pub dog, a diva who

prances off when called.

Skin rubbed raw on my wee toe,

blood stiffening the side of my sock.

But I don't want to slow down

my daughter, doyen of big city trekking

or admit to faulty footwear

or advancing arthritis

or being out of breath

or even the appearance of age spots.

The dog has it right, collapsing

onto her throw as I sigh into a chair,

and the speed walker hotfoots it

to the corner store.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Undercut

I had my hair cut last week, and it reminded me why I don't like going to the salon. The truth is sometimes hard to swallow.

Undercut

Tendons now rule the terrain

and "old lady" veins claim coulees

adjacent to bases of knuckles

grown prominent. The knob

beneath my thumb throbs

with a pendulum pulsing ache.

I glimpse my hands in the mirror

before slipping the snitches

under cover like culprits in hiding.

Feign interest in the casual chatter

of hairdressers everywhere.

But my "tell all" neck, peering

over the cinched cape, wobbles

like a turkey's wattle.

The truth trips me whenever I step

into the beauty salon, and short hair

means more potshots to a war-weary ego.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

24 February 2022

Each time Russia's war against Ukraine comes on the news I can't help but compare Ted Hughes' poem "Tractor" with Putin and his invasion of that country.

24 February 2022

Putin mirrors Ted Hughes' "Tractor"

frozen in time, in snow and ice.

"Hands like wounds inside armor gloves. . ."

The despot's battery, his need to regain

Russian glory, "hammering and hammering"

until it "jabbers . . . mockingly / Into happy

life. / And stands / shuddering itself full

of heat . . ."  Vladimir triggers his troops,

". . . vibrating condemned obedience

Of iron to the cruelty of iron. . ."

and sends his hubris rumbling into Ukraine.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

July the 5th 2022

The world as I know it is definitely changing. The death of Queen Elizabeth will bring profound shifts to England, and here in the US the ground is altering beneath us, too.

July the 5th 2022

Fog lies outside my windows

and inside my mind.

Last night's firework's display

watched with delight.

But what were we celebrating?

A country stepping backwards

with removal of a basic right

affecting women?

The loosened liberty to clutch

an AR-15 with its specter of death?

The rulings of this Supreme Court

Session hound me like unwanted smog.

No matter how hard I try to see

clearly, it clings to my surroundings

and will not dissipate.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

Mind the Specters

When I returned to London for a visit post-Covid, I noticed a change in the din produced while riding the Tube System. The good news was the noise abatement worked on the upper lines. The bad news being that it came at the expense of the lowest line.

Mind the Specters

Banshees haunt the deepest train lines

on London's Underground with flickering

lights and earsplitting complaints.

Layer upon layer of civilizations

agitated by mechanical worms now

grubbing the earth with passengers

across bone orchards long crumbled,

returned again to black dirt and dross.

Noise abatement on the upper lines

provokes deafening dins on the lowest.

175 feet down the ancients cry out anew.

The riders nettled, but carriage operators

hurtle on, sporting newly issued ear plugs.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Recipes-III

 Here is one more poem in a series about my mother.

Recipes-III

Mom sliced apples into a pie,

added sugar, cinnamon and butter by rote,

blotted her eyes and got on with crimping

                                                         the crust.

Concerns about my brother

              being kicked out of college

                                    latticed into the pastry.

Kneaded bread absorbed hassles

      over adolescent curfews,

           access to car keys.

She ruled in the kitchen. When Mom

wished to discuss curfew violations

or had concerns about our wanderings

she did so in her realm. Her patience

usually measured.

But once I saw her smack my sister

with a cookie sheet for talking back.

Cookbooks laced with recipes

and memoirs fascinated her.

A stockpot for emotions

               frowned upon as a child

                                  and stifled as an adult.

Her teardrops

             salting more than one batch

                                                  of brownies. 

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor    

Vaccination Hesitation

With the hubbub over Covid and now monkeypox it is easy to lose sight of viruses that are already part of our world until they hit home.

Vaccination Hesitation

What nasty rash skirted my eye?

The fates against falling ill had

favored me: no shingles shot marred

my schedule. But blotches now sullied

my visage and panicked my partner

to the clinic where we both tried to needle

the varicella virus from scoring again.

In the wake of my mistaken calculation,

I swear I heard an oddsmaker snicker,

and I swallowed days of misery.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Attitude Adjustment

I recently took a trip back to the town where I was raised. My brother's once country acreage is now an Amazon Fulfillment Center on the edge of an ever expanding city.

Attitude Adjustment

As a kid the comics came first

although they hung out in back.

Now I save them for last after plowing

through stories of war in Ukraine

and the latest mass shooting.

My brother, the firstborn, sported

an easygoing attitude while I, the final

child, carried the albatross of seriousness.

A mix-up by the birthing genie

leading my sib to overnight shifts, freeing

his days for more appealing pursuits like

bowhunting, studying biomes and birds,

romping with his dogs. Hard news drew

me, he scrapped the daily paper. I formed

a few strong friendships, he had scores.

A host of them celebrated his life

as he, in a sweatshirt grown baggy, held

court under July skies.

The carefree have always had it right:

eat dessert first, the Good Humor Man

lives, and start with the funnies

even when blinders blur the words.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor  

If Machiavelli Were a Musician

Here is another in my series of historical people in different occupations than for what they are remembered. 

If Machiavelli Were a Musician

                           after Carl Tomlinson

If Machiavelli were a musician

he would have held first chair

in the violins, tuning all the string

sections to his timbre preconcert

before sitting and interpreting

the score with the orchestra under

the eyes of the maestro, sometimes

bowing the melody alone before fading

into the background, but always

controlling the other instrumentalists

with his tempo, and never once

forgetting to applaud the conductor

after a performance.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Stalwart Sentries

On the drive to and from the cabin, we go past a scattering of small town cemeteries. In the Midwest the graveyards always give themselves away by the kind of trees planted there.

Stalwart Sentries

A willow guarded my childhood

backyard on the Dakota plains

with elms embracing out front.

On the edge of town a cluster

of cypresses graced the cemetery.

But less than a mile into the country

trees turned scarce as the land rolled

sea-like to infinity.

On Sunday drives to my bachelor-

farmer uncles, a group of graveyard

evergreens broke the horizon.

Landmarks on that ocean grassland

denoting burial grounds 

not unlike the one now holding 

my father and his brothers.

Hard for a young girl to contemplate

death; easier for her to dismiss

the soldier-straight markers fading

in the mirror.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Perspective

Late spring and people gather at the park. A stopover for migrating birds. A place of contentment until it isn't.  

Perspective

Reams of yellow police tape flutter

fitfully. The usual park-goers gone,

only EMTs pacing.

At a distance, a string of searchers

like cut-out paper dolls holding hands

scuff through brush and cattails.

The grounds without visitors

restyled into a resort-like spot

for migrating flocks

unperturbed by the rumbles

of a circling helicopter

and a boat trolling the lake.

But the thrumming holds unease

for those of us blurring the periphery.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Eco-Worrier's Creed

The planet is changing, and this is a statement about how I feel.

Eco-Worrier's Creed

I believe in Mother Nature,

Governess of heaven and earth,

and in the planet, itself, born

in chaos and tamed with time

until crucified under human

hands with runaway firestorms,

furious downpours, and the hell

of summer's scorching. After

years of warnings, Gaia comes

now to judge the damage done

from fossil fuels, deforestation

and drainage of ancient aquifers.

I believe in one sustainable

world, in composting and

recycling, in the work of wind

and sun, in creating wildlife

corridors, in driving electric cars,

in skipping the burger in favor

of chicken, in sweating more

in summer and layering on clothes

in winter, in buying from local

shops and supporting farmers'

markets, in limiting plane trips,

and carting reusable bags to stores

to hack at tendrils of complicity.

                                                Amen

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

Seduction

This is a repeat of a poem from a few years ago when my grandson joined ROTC in college. This weekend he is graduating from Notre Dame and heading off for flight training in San Antonio as a Lt. in the Air Force. Here's to you, Paul.

Seduction

Stripes of sunbeams pierce window mornings.

Birches rustle, stretching limbs and flicking tresses.

Loons and lily pads unfold to wisps of daylight.

Spring blushes dawn's horizon.

The hum of a small plane, the song of a siren

swells, promising the sky and more. Miles away

my grown grandson veers toward the Air Force.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

The Clock

London has Big Ben striking on the quarter hour. And in my living room stands a grandfather clock with similar Westminster Chimes tolling the same fifteen minute intervals. On one hand, a beloved inheritance and, on the other, a reminder of my daughter and her family living in England.

The Clock

The grandfather clock tolled

thirteen, and I bit my lip bloody.

An heirloom resonating

the vibrato of mismanagement.

Late autumn, and I had cranked

its hands in reverse, falling back

into standard time

instead of stopping and waiting

for the world to catch up.

Like a surly sergeant it complained

with crusty language.

I wanted to right the error right away.

But deep in my gray matter I heard

my father sigh, "Leave it alone.

Within an hour it will be fine on its own."

Doubting Thomas me disputed

the memory. Fretful me impassioned

action. Mortified me agreed with speed.

In the end, I laced my fingers, ignored

the urge for correction, and cringed over

wrong cadences marking the quarter hours.

After 60 minutes of purgatory, the timepiece

finally rang true. Impassive as a Royal

Guard standing watch.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

   

Ryan at Eight

I am about to leave for London, and will be away from this blog for the coming two weeks. I will admit that today's poem is a repeat. The grandson in the poem is about to turn 18, and will be off to University this fall.

Ryan at Eight

Backlit with the wonders

of his world - inchworms, trains,

stink bugs, fresh rain -

his open face

disappears in increments

as boys in upper grades slip him

streetwise wisdom

on the playground, snigger profanity

and swear sotto voce.

Some of this he shares with his Gran.

"They say Tom's mom is a lush."

A frown frames his question.

"What exactly is that?"

Then the worried follow-up, "If you drink

wine at dinner or beer in the pub,

is that too much?"

But his grownup mien,

the one without a smile, doesn't hold

in London's Underground. He leans

toward the tunnel

eyes alive as sparks on the rail,

little boy grin as he spots a headlight

advancing through the lampblack,

a rush of wind ruffling his hair.

I blink and a young man waits down the line.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Caught

Spring is always a time of hope, and it won't be long until frogs call to each other in a nearby pond. I need to hear this insistence on life in the wake of reports out of Ukraine, and the dead insects I find cleaning the cabin.

Caught

A spider belly-up in the water pitcher.

A housefly garotted in a skylight web.

A chipmunk snookered by a mousetrap

                guarding the garage.

A smattering of Asian beetles like currants

              dotting the cabin floor.

A crush of frogs in flagrant delecto

croaking delight in a springtime rite.

Their serenades reaffirming life despite

the workaday carnage of critters,

        the blues of daily news.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Ready, Steady, Go!

March weather can be all over the board in Minnesota. Right now winter prevails but the near forecast is for warmer temps, a stronger sun, and snow melting down to bare ground. But that can change with the blink of an eye. In other words, spring is coming.

Ready, Steady, Go!

Unsettled as a newbie player, messy March

careens between blizzards and ice out.

Produces sleet on Sunday then arranges

for a cookout on Monday.

Bounces between an open sun-roof

and cranking up the heater.

Pulls on shorts to skateboard one day but

laces up boots for shoveling snow the next.

Ricochets off pinball bumpers and tilts back

towards February before flipping

to win the bells and bright lights of April

with the maddening charm of the inept.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Current Norm in Rainstorms

Hurricane force winds battered the UK this past week causing untold damage. Not to mention the increase in numbers and the destruction of tornadoes here in the US. Storms worldwide have definitely become stronger, and I remember enduring more than one such rainstorm last summer.

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 street, 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

If Shakespeare Were a Sailor

Here is another in my series of poems about historical figures if they had been forced to choose different professions.

If Shakespeare Were a Sailor

                      after Charles Tomlinson

If Shakespeare were a sailor

he would have salted sonnets

on the sails and rollicked beneath

the billows above him, seared poetry

into the masts, and laid-by threads

of gossip from ale-swilling sea dogs

in the ports of Inverness and Aberdeen,

around bereft temples and animated

fountains of the Western Sea and more,

all while aching to luff these tidbits

into dramas once favorable winds

blew him back to London City

and into the arms of his beloved,

the theatre.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Walking Hazard

I have a hard time deciding what bothers me most when I walk country roads. Right now I swear it's the bitter cold, but come summer it would be those irritating flies.

Walking Hazard

#*!% flies wait to swarm any

mammal breeching their airspace.

Undaunted and doused with odious

repellent, I slap my way along.

A ribbit, sounding like an out-of-tune

guitar, betrays a bullfrog slavering

at the prospect of insects diverted

form my slipstream to his tongue.

And if I attached ribbons of flypaper

to the brim of my hat,

would my nose be the first and only

thing caught?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor  

Recipes - II

At Christmastime I prepare a bunch of different goodies, but I always include the cut-out cookies of my childhood. And I think of my own mother, so at home in the kitchen.

Recipes - II

My mother played her recipes

               like an irascible improv artist.

Forays into the kitchen meant

     a chance to riff but always with

           a baseline of "farm fresh" eggs.

Quantities rarely specified, followed by

casual instructions to bake, cook or steam                       

                     "Until done."

 My Dad typed the only recipe with detailed

            directions that I have of hers.

        Rare as a piece of once lost music.

At Christmastime when I first baked a batch

              of these cut-out cookies

      I heard reproof buried in her words:

"Next time, don't be so stingy with the dough."

Her comment echoed like an off-key note

          until she reached for more.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Yuletide Nod to Dr. Seuss

It's Christmas week again. And in the aftermath of last year's diminished season, I wrote this poem while thinking of the Grinch. May all of you enjoy far better Holidays this year!

A Yuletide Nod to Dr. Seuss

Last December in Minnesota

the prospect of rain reigned.

Scant chances lived for a white

Christmas or even a sit-down

with a stand-in Santa.

Come the Day itself no Nana

and Papa, but parcel post presents

under the festive tree.

No Uncles Bob and Jake,

Aunts Kelli and Kate, nor any 

cousins with new games to play.

Instead, a novel stage set:

a Zoom gathering with herky-jerky

movements and faces frozen

before folks signed off, retreating

to a dinner of discontent, featuring

downsized roast beast.

Still, the people sang the season

but ended their chorus on a sigh, and

from somewhere a catcall floated by

for the virus that stole Christmas.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

 

If Dickens Were a Ditch Digger

A while back I posted "If Galileo Were a Gardener" after Charles Tomlinson's poem "If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper." I wrote a series of poems in this vein, and from time to time they will crop up. Today is such a day. 

If Dickens Were a Ditch Digger

                     after Charles Tomlinson

If Dickens were a ditch digger

he would have shoveled the muck

of London, manure and mud clinging

to his clothes, as he uncovered a child's

broken crutch or exposed a tattered

piece of wedding veil beneath layers

of earth harboring ghostly reminders

of splintered lives while pesky

young pickpockets marked others

as he worked, quietly mulling over

his finds and shaping tales to entertain

his children at home, mesmerize

his mates at the pub.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unnerving

The sound of gunfire in the city scares me witless, but not so in the countryside. Conversely, the wail of a siren, so common in urban areas, frightens me while at the cabin.

Unnerving

Dawn spreads like a freshly

cracked egg over the rim of the world.

A red-bellied woodpecker tattoos

a tired oak, a pair of trumpeter swans

                                      pulsate contentment

and the surreal calls of loons croon.

Above all this

                          a whispered sigh

                                                         of a siren.

                   From my days in the ER

            too many minutes clutter the clock

               in the wake of a rural calamity.

That wavering hum,

                   the deadliest sound in the forest.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Mid-November

Fall lingers even here in the north country. I find it hard to reconcile bare-branched trees with the warm weather that has hallmarked our days.

Mid-November

Fall pulled a fast one,

absconding with all the foliage

while we reveled on picnic shores.

Leaves drooped, orphaned underfoot

until streets of naked trees jolted our gaze.

But nature thieved more than raiment

pinching extra days for a summer

grown disastrously fat, filching our sense

of seasons. Only light wraps at sundown;

we crawl into night exposed.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor