This week I spent time at the Wisconsin Dells with my grandchildren and their parents. Part of us traveled east from Minneapolis, the other group headed west from northern Indiana which meant braving Chicago traffic. The trick to making reasonable time through the Windy City rests with avoiding rush hour both coming and going.
Their trip out proved successful, the drive back turned into a different story. A four and a half hour journey expanded to six and a half hours. Even with GPS advising them on the fastest route they did no better than my well worn map used for years before Siri had a voice.
City Map - Chicago
Riding shotgun or in my glove box,
useless. Your streets show no
escape routes during rush hour
but force me into the flow
of your car-clogged arteries.
Bumper to bumper
from the Edens
east to the Indiana Skyway,
squeezed between eighteen-wheelers
and cell phone screamers
all caught in a slow moving
tango of vehicles.
From you I learned: NPR
repeats itself every two hours,
Fast Pass stickers become oxymorons
and flipping through iTunes may result
in missing a crucial exit.
Still, I scan your fan-folded pages
searching for a time warp portal,
a gun-your-engines run
on a thruway to elsewhere.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
City Pond
Even this far north there is no escaping the season's heat. When I walk for exercise this time of year it becomes imperative to do so early in the morning or I find it intolerable. There's a reason I live in Minnesota, especially when it comes to hot weather.
My usual walking course takes me through a wooded city park, around a lake, and past a handful of ponds. A great place to hear birds singing and frogs croaking, to visualize herons and egrets. But the increasing warmth of summer alters the composition of the smaller bodies of water. I don't know if this is problematic or simply a typical response.
City Pond
A cauldron of vichyssoise
thick with pea-green algae.
Ducks on logs preen, clean
feathers dripping with chlorophyta.
Turtle hatchlings dragging slime
slip and slide on rocks.
From a willow a kingfisher
watches the water below, flies off.
No fish? Poor visuals?
Parks and Rec unconcerned.
Should I be?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
My usual walking course takes me through a wooded city park, around a lake, and past a handful of ponds. A great place to hear birds singing and frogs croaking, to visualize herons and egrets. But the increasing warmth of summer alters the composition of the smaller bodies of water. I don't know if this is problematic or simply a typical response.
City Pond
A cauldron of vichyssoise
thick with pea-green algae.
Ducks on logs preen, clean
feathers dripping with chlorophyta.
Turtle hatchlings dragging slime
slip and slide on rocks.
From a willow a kingfisher
watches the water below, flies off.
No fish? Poor visuals?
Parks and Rec unconcerned.
Should I be?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Fireflies
I realize this posting is overdue, and I know my travels initiated the delay but the airlines prolonged it. Something about a mechanical problem which repeatedly pushed back our departure time. Always a tad unnerving and more than slightly aggravating for those making further connections.
In any case, I'm back home after visiting my son and his family. Come nighttime fireflies lit up the backyard, a pleasure forgotten when living in a high rise. Their graceful meandering reminded me of another summer evening watching my then six-year-old granddaughter and these magical insects.
Fireflies
On a muggy Indiana night
my granddaughter
filled her hand still sticky from cobbler
with sluggish bugs blinking their way
above new mown grass. Her fist clamped tight.
Sent to wash off the gooey mess
she pouted in protest, unfurled her fingers
and loosed nine tiny, twinkling lights
like a handful of stardust onto the breeze.
Not an injured wing among them.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
In any case, I'm back home after visiting my son and his family. Come nighttime fireflies lit up the backyard, a pleasure forgotten when living in a high rise. Their graceful meandering reminded me of another summer evening watching my then six-year-old granddaughter and these magical insects.
Fireflies
On a muggy Indiana night
my granddaughter
filled her hand still sticky from cobbler
with sluggish bugs blinking their way
above new mown grass. Her fist clamped tight.
Sent to wash off the gooey mess
she pouted in protest, unfurled her fingers
and loosed nine tiny, twinkling lights
like a handful of stardust onto the breeze.
Not an injured wing among them.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Eulogy to a Primary School
Back to my hometown for a high school class reunion the past few days. So many faces, so many changes. It always amazes me how time marches on for all of us. Doesn't leave anyone behind even those who remain fixed in our minds at age 18 or whenever we last saw them. Yes, they have aged, too.
Upheaval in the old order can sneak up on a person, especially, when one is not paying attention. Seven years ago the news that my grade school permanently shut its doors jolted me, caused me to remember those kid crammed classrooms, consider how nothing remains static. Which brings me back to my reunion this weekend, and how fortunate we are to be able to reestablish connections that could easily slip away given the years and distance between all of us.
Eulogy to a Primary School
They're closing my grade school:
the one next to the Cathedral
that bulged with kids fifty to a room,
run by nuns in white habits and starched
black veils, masters in the art of yardsticks.
They're closing my grade school:
where they tried vainly to teach me
cursive, told me to mouth the words
during singing, and displayed drawings
of mine only out of compassion.
They're closing my grade school:
established in 1905 in the North End
where Victorian homes once housed
lawyers and doctors generous
with fund raisers and collection plates.
They're closing my grade school:
sitting on a lot across from the convent
where I took piano from Sister Felicitas,
her voice icy when she caught me playing
pop and not Bach in the practice room.
They're closing my grade school:
the one granting diplomas to over
a hundred students in my eighth grade
class but in its last year graduated
less than twenty.
When did it grow so small?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Upheaval in the old order can sneak up on a person, especially, when one is not paying attention. Seven years ago the news that my grade school permanently shut its doors jolted me, caused me to remember those kid crammed classrooms, consider how nothing remains static. Which brings me back to my reunion this weekend, and how fortunate we are to be able to reestablish connections that could easily slip away given the years and distance between all of us.
Eulogy to a Primary School
They're closing my grade school:
the one next to the Cathedral
that bulged with kids fifty to a room,
run by nuns in white habits and starched
black veils, masters in the art of yardsticks.
They're closing my grade school:
where they tried vainly to teach me
cursive, told me to mouth the words
during singing, and displayed drawings
of mine only out of compassion.
They're closing my grade school:
established in 1905 in the North End
where Victorian homes once housed
lawyers and doctors generous
with fund raisers and collection plates.
They're closing my grade school:
sitting on a lot across from the convent
where I took piano from Sister Felicitas,
her voice icy when she caught me playing
pop and not Bach in the practice room.
They're closing my grade school:
the one granting diplomas to over
a hundred students in my eighth grade
class but in its last year graduated
less than twenty.
When did it grow so small?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Intermezzo
Because of summer travels I'm a day early with this week's blog and already know I'll be a day late next time. So, I figure this evens things out, nicely.
Until three years ago I resided in various places where pleasant sounds of the night drifted through open, summer windows. Frogs and crickets lulled me to sleep, chick-a-dees and robins roused me in the mornings. That changed when I moved into a high rise. As we all know, builders tend to locate them in high density areas which usually means almost constant TRAFFIC NOISE.
Having lived here for a while, I notice that on weekends and holidays this annoyance decreases dramatically, at least for a few hours early on. And, occasionally, if I wake soon enough on an average day, I can still hear birds singing their way into the dawn. But the nighttime hooting of the owl no longer reaches my ears.
Intermezzo
Unadorned melodies of the night
rain washing the world
a concert of crickets
the wind holding court
swallowed by scores
of mufflers and motors and horns
ten stories down.
The unmetered run of darkness
echoing hot rods and half-wits.
But sometimes predawn
the chance for birdsong
in the hush between movements.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Until three years ago I resided in various places where pleasant sounds of the night drifted through open, summer windows. Frogs and crickets lulled me to sleep, chick-a-dees and robins roused me in the mornings. That changed when I moved into a high rise. As we all know, builders tend to locate them in high density areas which usually means almost constant TRAFFIC NOISE.
Having lived here for a while, I notice that on weekends and holidays this annoyance decreases dramatically, at least for a few hours early on. And, occasionally, if I wake soon enough on an average day, I can still hear birds singing their way into the dawn. But the nighttime hooting of the owl no longer reaches my ears.
Intermezzo
Unadorned melodies of the night
rain washing the world
a concert of crickets
the wind holding court
swallowed by scores
of mufflers and motors and horns
ten stories down.
The unmetered run of darkness
echoing hot rods and half-wits.
But sometimes predawn
the chance for birdsong
in the hush between movements.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
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