January 1st, Any Year

Happy New Year, Everyone! I feel as if New Year resolutions have almost become passe. And if we do make some, how many of us really follow through when it's so much easier to moan about problems than tackle them? We can change that.



January 1st, Any Year


A day of reckoning, a time
for resolutions, another chance
to challenge troublesome headaches:

put down the smart phone, clean up
your corner of the earth, use less,
lose the extra cookie, take a walk,
be open to all.

Or stick with the usual aspirin,
and don't call me in the morning.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Buying a Xmas Tree at a Big Box Store

Happy Holidays, Everyone!



Buying a Xmas Tree at a Big Box Store


Part indoors, part out, part slippery floor,
part nursery, part bling, part hardware store.
Rows of frosty firs stood stiff with cold,
stacks of Christmas wreaths lay trimmed in gold.
Inflatable Santa rocked in the breeze,
and seasonal workers tried not to freeze.

The air changed when a wide-eyed child appeared
and turned flagging smiles to holiday cheer.
Suddenly, a not-so-perfect tree
revealed possibilities to me.
The boy cast a spell over all we saw,
gifting me a needed sense of awe.

Magic blooms in the strangest of places,
sometimes even in big box spaces.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Solstice in the City

We are in the middle of a December warm streak. Towns to the north of us set records for high temps yesterday, and whatever snow that has fallen here will soon be gone. Winter solstice, waiting at the end of this week, holds no sting this year.



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 struggling 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 acquainted with the story
protest the relentless revisions.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Billingsgate - 4:00AM

Andrew and I have a favorite place for gathering with our friends simply because Wednesday oysters on the half-shell are $1.00 apiece. You can find us there late afternoons maybe once a month with Andrew happily devouring two dozen of the mollusks. We both agree that weekly forays would be overkill, and the specialness would wear thin.



Billingsgate - 4:00AM


A roll of the dice riding on the whims
of appetites. Shop owners and chefs
walk the morning market.

A warehouse of fresh fish and seafood
heaped high beneath lights brighter
than the London sun struggling to rise.

Sea bream, cod, or the catch of the day?

Like players betting on stocks
customers invest in oysters and shrimp,
assume risk on snapper and skate.

Fast talking vendors
in wellies and aprons control cash flow.

Profit in the buyer's pocket, too,
if wagered right. If not, today's sole
surfaces in a bouillabaisse tomorrow.

Perhaps, that's why Jenny,
years behind the counter, eats only meat.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

On Growing Older

Someone close to me celebrated a 50th birthday this week, but it seems only yesterday that she was born. Where does the time go? The lament of all of us lucky enough to ponder life from a far shore even as we begrudge our own aging.



On Growing Older


A pebble
picked up while strolling
through life. Roll it
across your fingers.

Turn it, touch it.
Feel sandpaper surfaces
and smooth contours,
surprise angles, quirky edges.

Toss it, reject it
only to one day discover it
back inside your shoe.
Stuck.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor