August 2nd, 2020, USA

Leading news items found in last Sunday's New York Times.



August 2nd, 2020, USA


Hurricane Isaias pounding one coast
A California wildfire wrecking the other
Coronavirus chewing up the intererior
Black Mariahs at protests in Portland
In Phoenix the hottest month now on record
Added relief for the jobless jettisoned in D.C.

And from the Gulf of Mexico
"Welcome back to planet Earth!" heard



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Summertime Recon

Languid, summer days always bring me back to my childhood and the time spent on the farm belonging to my dad's siblings every July or August.



Summertime Recon


Two bachelor-farmer uncles
and their spinster sister:
three adults content to let

a city kid run free in a fiefdom
surrounding their farmhouse.

In the side-yard a monster tree
with one arm brandishes
a rough plank swing, swaying
from bewhiskered ropes.

To the north thrives a shelter-belt,
commandos in the guise of gnarled oaks
and elms, guarding the yard.

If any foe makes it through, they face
the dicey territory of chickens
and a lone rooster, spurs at the ready,
beak aimed at anyone in his path.

Should an intruder avoid being pecked
to death, the smell of the adjacent privy
would hit him like a blunderbuss.

To the south and west, barbed wire
bridles the threat of endless plains.

Perimeters secured I tend the threshold,
sunburnt and thirsty. But what to drink?
Fresh milk tasting of prairie scrub

or well-water smacking of minerals?
Unsweetened Kool-Aid, the Major General's
preferred quaff, or a cup of cold coffee?

Like a sack of pellets emptied from a low
flying cloud, an ambush of pea-sized hail
pummels my head as I dash inside.

Our only course of action lay with the rosary beads
already in the hands of my aunt; my uncles
wet, cursing, and not so certain.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unsteady Star

The comet NEOWISE has been in our sky lately. I have yet to see it. In a different part of the heavens a large star in the Constellation of Orion may be in trouble, and that one is visible to the naked eye.



Unsteady Star


Betelgeuse, a beguiling superstar
in Orion and more strapping
than our sun, flickers like a stuttering

lightbulb from flashes of brilliance
to funks of murkiness,
revealing erratic pulsations
of an unstable patient.

Burning, churning
and expending its fuel,
pressured by internal shadows,
destined for collapse, perhaps.

But this extrasolar luminary,
tagged as semi-regular, may merely
be dimming randomly, puckishly

like my friend when he chose to scorn
his bipolar meds.

But the star a survivor, not a postscript
                                                  thus far.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Sleeping Outdoors

As many of you know, Minnesota's other state bird is the mosquito. And some of them have been known to drift eastward to Wisconsin where I encounter them.

My feelings about these insects can be intuited in this Found Poem - a rearrangement of words written for a different context.



Sleeping Outdoors
   
    A Found Poem from McCormick's
    "Hang Time," Minnesota Monthly,
    May/June 2019


In mosquito country, pack heat
or back away.

Wild bugs parachute in,
hang from trees on the trail,
angle for a better view of you.

Primed to strap themselves
to backs and butts

they can sweep away the goal
of completing a trail run

or shave comfort from viewing
stars on a summer's evening.

The most common mistake
lies in forgetting netting
at snooze time.

That closer-to-nature feeling?
Not that appealing.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unmoored in Time

On a recent morning walk up at the cabin I encountered a pair of sandhill cranes hustling across the road in front of me. They surprised me since these birds are not typically found in forested land. But then I did see one last summer, too, along with a brutal reminder that nature is not all sweetness.



Unmoored in Time


An eagle on the hunt
marks a lone crane, listless
and drifting on the lake.

Heartbreaking shrieks
at the attack of claws and beak.
The day rubber-bands
until the predator breaks away.

Neck still arched, the stunned target
maintains its grace, circling
then slipping to a sodden grave.

Tetracords and trilobites belch.

The rest of the forest silent
except for an "Adagio for Strings"
filtered by cabin screens and screes

of a hawk relentlessly rebuking
his competitor.

Finally, the pterosaur flies off, leaving      
bucolic shambles warping his backwash.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

When Flames Come

When I wrote this poem I had Windsor Castle and The Glasgow School of Art in mind. Both are elegant brick buildings which caught on fire. Now looking at the poem in light of George Floyd's death, it reads as a metaphor for Law Enforcement in the US.



When Flames Come


remember what the mason
knows - it's tricky to be delicate

and durable both, to craft
a structure for the ages,

produce a puzzle
of stone and grace,

to assume fire resistance
when building with brick
and downplay exposed finishes,

dismiss the odds of facing intact walls
around a gutted core, watching dreams
stream like smoke through an open door.

It will happen again, it has happened before.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Not a Breath of Air

Usually, hot days are not a problem at the cabin in the north woods, especially with a breeze. But when there is no air movement at all and the temps are in the 90s, it becomes a tad uncomfortable.



Not a Breath of Air


A painting, a Winslow waterscape
outside my morning window.

A brown-porcelain barge
and biscuit figures idle on the far shore
of a lake brushed with lily pads.

Blanc-de-chine gods drift
between branches in fog-draped trees.

Too soon,
the bull-beating heat of the sun
dissolves the tableau, sweats the jug
and settles itself on my deck:

an unwanted caller dawdling
on Adirondack chairs. My tumbler
of ice water shimmers.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Following the Death of George Floyd - III

It's been almost two weeks since the Memorial Service for George Floyd in Minneapolis. And even though calm now prevails, the underlying tensions remain close to the surface, fueling the need for reform.



Following the Death of George Floyd
Day Ten of Unrest - Minneapolis


Today the Memorial for Mister Floyd.
Al Sharpton presiding and hammering home,
"Take your knee off our necks!"

Those present, those outside, and those tuned
      in electronically standing in silence
             8 minutes and 46 seconds.

Unbearably long for everyone - unending
                                                  for George.


Curfews lifted, some Guardsmen retreating,
Coronavirus creeping back into consciousness.
The city shattered, the citizens shaken
but nurturing a hope for change.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Following the Death of George Floyd - II

The killing of George Floyd remains front and center in Minneapolis. A few days ago I happened to drive by a building that had been torched and several more that had been boarded up. But this was in St. Paul, merely a sideshow to the main action.



Following the Death of George Floyd
Day Four of Unrest - Minneapolis


Pandora,

You have again opened your box
and unleashed a whirlwind of destruction.

Four nights and counting.
Feeding on itself and fanning across America.

Close the case! before what little hope we harbor
soars off with the others.



Following the Death of George Floyd
Day Eight of Unrest - Minneapolis


Minority neighborhoods suffering.
Wanton wastage of Mom and Pop shops
and big box stores, both.

An army of residents responding
with 20,000 bags of groceries
and more,
with baby formula and diapers,
with brooms and shovels
and the will to clean,
with solidarity
in the idea things must change.

The rubble of businesses in the background,
the smell of smoke lingering,
and the unspoken fear of this momentum
                                                       being lost.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Following the Death of George Floyd

This has been a horrific week in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd. A series of poems about this time continues to foment within me. Here are two of them.



Following the Death of George Floyd
Day Three of Unrest - Minneapolis


Injustice butts heads
with bands of blue-clad policemen.

Rocks and bottles battle bullets
of rubber, tear gas. Opening skirmishes.

Angry red shopping carts fly airborne
towards the doors of the superstore
that birthed them.

Palpable outrage simmers and builds,
burns buildings and sears the souls
of anguished citizens.

In the distance I see the flames climbing.



Following the Death of George Floyd
Day Five of Unrest - Minneapolis


A thousand rioters shoving, pressing to cross a bridge.
A thousand cops pushing back.

Official vehicles with flashing lights
- blue then red then blue then red then blue then red -
a psychedelic cork plugging the way

as the waters of the northern Mississippi
tumble a thousand feet below
in the bootblack of night.

Thousands of National Guardsmen, State Troopers
and Police like border collies with sharp teeth
- nipping, nipping, biting, nipping, biting, biting -
work on dispersing crowds defying curfew, bent
on mayhem.

Across the country a thousand other hotspots roil
with turmoil, too.



 Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

May Haiku in Minnesota

This last weekend reminded me that rainy days are common in May in Minnesota. And that summer's warmth sometimes doesn't come as quickly as we would like.



May Haiku in Minnesota


The furnace kicks on,
rain swells the fields, rivers pound,
hamstrung farmers curse.

Frogs in pop-up ponds
brazenly hum vibratos
of piercing desire.

Across the city
tulips and dandelions
burst forth, heads unbowed.

Blooming crabapples
swamp the eyes with magenta
even as they droop.

The siren of spring
calls through raindrops, promising
days drenched in honey

and a prime belief
in the drumbeat of sunshine
beneath sullen clouds.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Transients

The first day of spring officially falls on the Vernal Equinox in late March. But in the Northland the weather pays no attention to dates.



Transients


At the cabin up north
on this first day of spring

diamonds carpet the deck

as if little people labored
through the night in mines
beneath leftover snow

scattering their finds with abandon.

Mica flashing in moonlight
and morning sunshine only.

Ephemera vanishing by midday
like the dashed hopes
for a Happy Hour with friends

or a swift demise of the lethal virus
now trending in our biosphere.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Repose

Mother's Day here in the States fell this past Sunday, triggering memories of my own mom. I wrote a series of poems about her in the last years of her life, and here is one of them.



Repose


How many afternoons
do I find you drifting?

Still willful as a two-year-old,
still the gracious doctor's wife.

Head burnishing the rocker,
wig aslant, almost asleep

eyes closed, mouth open,
open book yawning at Chapter Two.

At ninety you protest any need
for a nap, ignore advice to the contrary.

Like Busch, your once beloved
German shepherd, you sit content

with the quiet, resting in mid-day
languor, aware.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Fates Have Cast their Dice at her Birth

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is set for this coming Sunday in Minneapolis. A long held fundraiser to fight breast cancer this year has become virtual.

No blocking off streets in my neighborhood for the event. No sea of participants wearing pink. No trigger for tears as I watch from my window. You see, a few years back the race turned personal.



The Fates Have Cast their Dice at her Birth


A photo of a youngish woman
pivots to me from the obits
of today's newsprint.

Breast cancer placing her there.

Three years disease free
until she wasn't.

Three years out
from disfigurement by scalpel,
poisonous rays, searing drugs.

My jack-in-the-box heart
bounds from my ribs

as my own daughter
continues year three of Tamoxifen.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor