Memory

My mother suffered a stroke a dozen years before her death. It robbed her of the capacity to form new memories but left her physically intact and irascible as always. She retained the ability to remember people and events up until the day of her stroke. If Mom knew you before, she clearly remembered you afterwards. If you met her after that time, you forever remained a mystery to her except in the moment.

The same conditions applied to happenings around my mother. The recollection of any affair, be it joyful or calamitous, simply did not take root. With the uproar of provacative headlines now coming at us daily, there are times I envy that fugue.



Memory


Old woman,
what is it like to live with a decade
of images that failed to gel?

You recall waving at the Kaiser
but do not know your neighbors,
reminisce about your aunt's hand-dipped
chocolates while breakfast remains
an enigma. Dad's last stroke and his year
in long term care slip through your neurons
like water through a porous flowerpot.

Unable to retain today's raw dispatches
you live easier with the past's softened edges,
reconciled to a son's attempted suicide,
a daughter's teenage pregnancy,
your children's divorces.

You have no need of headlines.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

A while back I stumbled on a very large/outdated unabridged dictionary. The kind that once rested on a stand specifically crafted for those tomes. I admit I love books, and my idea of a blissful afternoon is wandering through a bookstore, preferably independently owned, chock full of unusual and interesting titles.

When I came upon this lone volume used as a prop in a fusty antique furniture store, I couldn't believe my luck. The shop owner had it priced at only $10, apparently to make it disappear quickly. I happily obliged him.



Webster's Unabridged Dictionary


Discovered like a once lost friend, it sat
silenced by dour furniture in an antique store.

Stiff-backed as a queen's guard,
its prime shape belied a 1935 print date

as it waited to flex its vocal cords
anew from aal to zyxomma.

Filled with funky words such as frab
and forswonk. Peppered with phrases

that sound as if I should know them:
King of Swat and the Roaring Forties.

Laced with lingo blowing through the 30s:
Hooverize, Jersey lightening, and Okie.

On page nine fifty-three under "P"
a parade of found nouns: pavon, pawk

and payen. Trounce words for tight
corners and scrabble's tough letters.

Dismissed by today's generation
as the man with a dusty bow tie

it remains the charming uncle now home,
regaling us with stories to rival Odysseus.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Rumplestiltskin Enterprises

As I travel west across the Minnesota prairies, I have noticed fields of wind turbines sprouting where acres of corn and soybeans once grew. I watched as a nascent line of five burgeoned into hundreds like dandelion fluff spreading on the breeze, unstoppable. A sustainable crop of energy even in deepest January.


Rumplestiltskin Enterprises


First there were five then ten,
now clusters of lithe maidens
tall against the horizon harvesting
the wind, slender arms turning,
endlessly spinning the rush of air
into platinum threads of electricity,
and no firstborns need be relinquished
nor the world as we know it.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Transformations

Janus has always fascinated me. With one face remembering the past and the other foreseeing the future, he endures as a symbol of change. Legions of soldiers invoked his name when they went to war but so did farmers, married couples, and countless others facing transitions. Considered a major Roman god, he ranked alongside Jupiter.

Our closest likeness remains a weary Father Time and the fired-up New Year's Infant as they cross paths each January 1st. To my mind, Janus conveys a much better image.



Transformations


Janus,
two-faced deity of ancient Rome,
youth and age back to back,
god of good beginnings,
triumphal endings.

Should we then look to you
as we grow older
for a grand closing to our years?
Or do you prefer to preside
over warring soldiers?

But isn't life a battle, aren't we
warriors, all, and doesn't time
pick up power and speed
as the days advance?

What strategy do you hold
for mortal man? How do we stand
strong when memories betray us,
endurance flags, and illness nips
at our heels?

Or are these end points too difficult
even for you? And is that why
the Greeks had no one equivalent
in their pantheon of gods?



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

January 1

It's New Year's morning. The sky is gloriously clear, carrying the hope of sunshine all day - enough to hold onto and remember when the clouds of 2017 inevitably appear. Stay positive, my friends.



January 1


Smoke shadows stream
across cottonwoods cleaned
of sojourner leaves

A slight-of-hand incense swirling
through arms held high
beneath a morning glory sky



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor