Forbearance

Like most of the country it is very cold up here this weekend. Unlike most of the country our high temperatures have not found their way above zero the past couple of days. Enough said. Happy New Year, Everyone!



Forbearance


At dawn Sol arcs his arms,
balancing crystalline patches of light
on his left and right,
adroitly rising from the stage floor
like the superstar he is.

Icebound January his backdrop,
a tableau designed
for the sun dogs he steadies.

Offstage and bedded down
his brutish dog-days of summer pay no heed.

Polar opposites tolerant of one another.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Solstice in the City

I know this is the Christmas weekend, but another event celebrated religiously through the millennia occurred three days ago - winter solstice. And this is my take on it. Happy Holidays, Everyone.



Solstice in the City


Winter's opening night buried in a flurry
of holidays. The stage readied
for a story pitting gloom and Borealis

against a weakened Sol
and his straggling bands of luminance.
The shopworn play dusted-off annually

despite the certainty of mixed reviews
and an empty Presidential box.
But there exist those of us

who gather this drama into our bones,
know the dialogue of each par-sec of light,
hold tight to Tolstoy, Chekov

and winter's untouched script,
drink Rachmaninov and Liszt.
But rewrites cut short the soliloquy

of spiteful cold, shave lines from arctic ice.
And audiences everywhere protest
the relentless revisions.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unexpected Guest

We live relatively close to a sprawling city park complete with a lake and walking paths through a heavily treed area. Last week I watched as a stately hawk landed on a high, leafless branch.

I reached for my camera but he would have none of it, and flew away. Somehow I suspect he was the same bird come to visit me earlier this summer.



Unexpected Guest


Perched on my balcony
ten stories high,
a red-tailed hawk, unperturbed,
undisturbed, surveyed the city scene.

Mid-step I froze like Lot's wife,
mesmerized.

Snowy breast streaked with chocolate,
head swiveling, searching, noting me,
winged wildness content to sit for a spell.

But not I, I itched for something more,
a photo for show. A fool's dream.

My least motion left me bereft.
Yellow-light talons in flight, warning
"Stay away!"

Across the sky
he circles on distant thermals,
a drifter on a solitary course.

The two of us never meant to be.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Hallway Prop

Andrew and I live in a condo that is a neighborhood of its own. Every Christmas Season many of the residents celebrate with a holiday dinner, providing everyone the chance to meet newcomers and catch up with old friends.

Last night's get together brought to mind the quiet couple who once lived across from us. At the time I wrote this poem, I still harbored the hope that they could continue to be our neighbors.



Hallway Prop


A hum-drum vignette dominates
the end of the corridor on our floor:
faux flowers set
beneath a Flemish water scene

belonging to George and Edna
across the hall, undisturbed

until the year I volunteered
to change the decor for Christmas.

But Edna moved to Memory Care,
and during the Holidays
George left on a medic's stretcher,
confused.

Come New Year's Day
Santa and his sleigh packed away.
The bare glass table more disquieting
than Sunday papers waiting for Monday

until those familiar posies ambushed me
once again, strangely handsome. George restored.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Lost Lives

Six weeks back I took a road trip to South Dakota, my home state. It's a lonely drive across the flat prairies of southern Minnesota with only scattered farmhouses, outbuildings, and the occasional tractor, plowing a field, to keep me company.

Most of the homesteads contained the spark of busy lives. But some appeared broken down and deserted, causing me to speculate on their fate.



Lost Lives


My eye catches a cluster of farm buildings
abandoned and weathered grey
on a vast stretch of open fields.

Who delighted in calling this place home?
Was the cropland rich, the rain plentiful,
or the soil meager and the sky stingy?
Who butchered the hogs, plucked the chickens,
stewed wild rhubarb for cobbler in spring?
Did a school bus battered by gravel stop
at the drive, scaring the barnyard cats?
How many years were the yields good
before the books, branded by overdue bills,
dried up like drought?
Did neighbors shift their feet, mumble bids
at a foreclosure auction?
Or was the land productive, sold at a price
too good to pass up, structures no longer needed?
When did the windows first gape in collapse,
and do frugal buildings implode more quickly?
Will later generations dig deeper, or remain
content with stories passed down?

Close by, a grove of gnarled trees huddles
to protect a fading house, some sheds from blizzards,
still blasting out of Canada come winter.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor