Obsidians

Despite last week's hype, a total lunar eclipse imposed on a super moon isn't nearly as rare as a month with no full moon at all. Something that only happens in February every 19 years. I should have paid more attention last winter.



Obsidians


February folds into Jack Frost's cloak,
and refuses to host a lunar fanfare.

Like a storyline from a fairy tale
I wander through witching hours
for 28 days shadowed in trance

until the orb of March
surfaces like a freed pearl, luminescent
in the waves of a star-crested sky.

A blush fires my cheeks,
not from the presence of a prince

but from my neglect of the heavens
in the hands of a black moon month.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor  

Late Night Squall

I am a daughter of the prairie and limitless skies. My heart sings whenever I travel west to the Dakotas, open land and unending horizons before me. Sky views from the expanse of windows from where I live, ten floors up, soothe my soul bound by the city. And when I pay attention, the heavens tell endless tales.



                  Late Night Squall


A bruised dawn awakens puffy and purple,
     the corner of the horizon sanguinary

                               as

       Sol struggles to peer through slits
                      in the overcast.              



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Dark Days

Sometimes people let you down. But despite all, you simply move on.



Dark Days


The cold seeps into my feet
and double socks don't help.

The cold lingers, leeches into my arms
from kitchen countertops of stone.

The cold hides in corners, sneaks down
the chair back, shrouds my shoulders.

The cold burns when I breathe
a friend's pointed lie.

I find it infinitely harder to reheat
my core than to warm my limbs.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

May This Marriage Be Full of Laughter

Winter weather is not what it used to be. Instead of typical icebox readings, we've enjoyed a run of days in the 40s. Instead of shoveling a foot of white stuff a week or so ago, we saw snowfall turn into record amounts of rain.

Need I say, usually the rain changes to snow around here, and not vice versa? Like the crazy weather accompanying a friend's wedding early last spring.



May This Marriage Be Full of Laughter
                                                            Rumi


Charcoal smeared clouds
leak like sagging party tents
before rain rends their seams.

A twenty degree temperature drop
conjures a wave-of-the-wand whiteout.

At the Country Club
young men maneuver trucks equipped
to hustle growing drifts off to the side

before the bride arrives.
Her dark, Persian tresses dusted
with disappearing diamonds of a wintry day.

The ruination
of my sparkly new shoes complete
in the snowbanks of celebration.

By night's end
parked cars like wavy lines of petit fours
chill beneath dollops of bridal cake frosting.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor