From the Corner of My Eye

We drove to the cabin this weekend in the face of an October snowstorm forecast to be bad by local meteorologists. Usually, the more dire they sound, the milder the weather event in actuality. We payed them scant mind although, occasionally, they are spot on.

This was one of those times. The further north we went, the more accurate their predictions. I'll leave it at three and a half hours of "limited visibility" due to strong winds and snowfall.

Today's poem originated in a trip taken under similar conditions a few years back.



From the Corner of My Eye


Highways hum
with 4 x 4s and SUVs heading north,
cabin bound.

November sleet slamming down,
sodden woods waiting.       For what?

Then
from a pickup
a glimpse of blaze-orange.

Intense as my brother's
baseball cap              sweat stained
                           with sunrise pursuits.

Unmoved from its place
on the coatrack, tossed there
                                         insouciantly
following his last hunt,
four seasons past,
                 
               a month before the diagnosis.

Otis, his yellow lab,
nosing the deep-worn chair.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Autumn Takes

A few observations as the beauty of the season starts to wane here in the north country.



Autumn Takes

I

Many of the trees drag
this fall. The usual show-stopping
scenes already faded
from the trunk.

Their vaunted season finale
subdued and lackluster.
A chorus line weary from too long
a run. The enthusiasm
of the director dissipated
in the rain.

II

Overnight
the uppermost branches
of a holdout maple
dipped into a cask of ruby claret.

Telltale tips stained
like a paint brush upended
and left in the breeze
by a distracted designer.

III

Some hardwoods
swiftly strip themselves of foliage
except for the very top.

In naked delight
they shimmy in the wind,
high leaves dancing with abandon.

Like a long-ago lover of mine,
stocking feet wiggling happily
in the air and all else bare.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Black Sheep

Fall now, and the trees are lovely. Some streets hold nothing but hardwoods turned gold, and some play host to only Crimson King maples. But most of the city is flooded with a mix of vibrant autumn hues, and steadfast evergreens act as the perfect foil. A beautiful time in the Northland.



Black Sheep


I fretted for the tamaracks, naively.

Patches of yellowed pines
dropping needles on October breezes.
A study of struggle in sepia, wasteland
tableaus within evergreen forests.

Searching for bark beetles or blight,
I thumbed my Field Guide, discovered
instead, a fibster, a faker, a mocker,
and the truth of this imagined disaster.

Come autumn these trees
follow a beat of their own - shed bowties,
cummerbunds and all, unlike stately cousins,
and much to the family's chagrin.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Mid-Autumn Delights

Each October Asian cultures celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, a major holiday kindred to Thanksgiving. These festivities feature traditional foods and focus on family gatherings. At harvest time mooncakes have been known to appear on our own table here in Minnesota.



Mid-Autumn Delights


Around the curve of a night road
a rising moon
wide as the street-way, itself,

golden as the mooncakes in the box.
A harvest treat filled
with lotus paste, a taste of your past,
a foreign flavor on my tongue.

A total turnabout
from yesterday's fresh apple pie.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Stills

Back to the cabin this past week. It was unusually warm for late September, and rainy. But that didn't stop us from hiking the woods where we startled a doe and her fawn into statue-like stillness before they turned and loped deeper into the forest. Their presence reminded me that hunting season draws ever closer.



Stills


The camera catches
the unseeing eye of a felled deer,
a small slit in the lens.

Did a twig snatch it, scratch it
as the warm brown body
stumbled?

The color blue
bending into black
pools under thick lashes.

I have seen quiet eyes
like this before
on a wild ER night.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor