Summertime Games

I am off to Singapore next week, and will be taking a two week break from the blog. If I don't melt in the heat, you'll hear from me again mid-July.

Summer - a season to sit back and relax, revel in long days and warmth. Best epitomized by kids let loose from school, and finally free to run barefoot in the grass.



Summertime Games


Freewheeling swallows

                four or five fledglings
                 gleefully chattering

                           soar and swoop for fun
                in evening mellow hours

like neighborhood kids

                     let loose after dinner
                  cartwheeling in the grass
                      playing tag out back

                                         before bedtime.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Ode to Joy

Music filled this last week for me. Twice in the past few days I attended concerts performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Yo Yo Ma the principal artist at one of them.

At the same time, there exists a famous black and white photo taken in the 1950s of a young boy in Peru, playing a flute and walking down a road. The joy in that scene captures the delight experienced in any Orchestra Hall.



Ode to Joy
       (After Bischof's  Flute Player 
        on the Way to Cuzco, Peru, 1954)


Descendant of Incas

                        Classical heirs

In sandals and shorts

                         In tuxedos and ties

With stripes on his poncho

                         Wearing shiny black shoes

Played his flute

                         Commanded a hall

And the melody flowed

                         And Beethoven's Ninth

Eased distractions

                         Lifted spirits

Lightened the load

                         Erased distress

With a single instrument

                         With chorus and orchestra

As complete

                         As effective

As a symphony of musicians

                         As the stream of a flute



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Swampland Puzzle

Nature is full of surprises. For instance, I had no idea until this weekend that dragonflies molt, leaving behind tissue-thin exoskeletons. But insect deviations pale in comparison to the orange alligator photographed sunning on the banks of a South Carolina pond earlier this year.

One scientist theorized the stain may have come from naturally occurring sediment in some waterway. Another observed that if the pigment were only skin deep, the gator's color would be back to normal in two weeks.

To my knowledge, no one ever posted a follow-up photo, giving us the rest of the story. I guess we will never know.



Swampland Puzzle


An alligator lazes
Bankside of a Carolinian canal.
Carrot-color reptile.

A herpetology head-scratcher.

Rusty from culvert creeping?
Too many sweet potato pies?
A hoodoo spell? Toxins?

If it's not easy being green,
This change to tangerine
Begs for attention, wanted or not.

Could be it's a temporary tint,
Disappearing like the odd press item
Found on slow news days.

Or, maybe, it's permanent
And swampers will mark the trophy.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Wildfire

Unlike the previous 20 months, May in Minnesota did not average above normal temperatures. But that quickly changed with the arrival of June. Most of the State posted highs in the 90s the past few days. Just in time for the controversial withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.

However, the heat we experienced last spring was one for the record books. And it was felt far beyond Minnesota.



Wildfire


A pall drifted in overnight,
tracings of a raging forest fire riding
Canadian air south. This one tangible

as a ninety-degree wrap in May, in Minnesota.
Not easily dismissible as someone's tall tale.

In Alberta parched pines burn on tar sands
owned by oilmen selling hydrocarbons.
A company town, booming as any goldmine
encampment, evacuated when gusty winds set in.

Nearby, levels down on the waterway tapped
to help with fracking.

"Karma," murmurs the Athabasca River,
drained of power, burdened with impurities,
fed up with the heat of man.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor