The kids I cared for in the ER came with a variety of names. Granted, a lot of them were white bread like Emma and Lucas but any number of them were not.
A few names have stayed with me mostly for their quirkiness: La - sha (La dash sha) and SSSST (Forest). But I remember one patient because of a name that described her circumstances precisely.
A Trick of the Gods
Before me in the ER
lies a twelve-year-old girl,
bearing a name known
to the ancients.
Having slid into this world
too soon, she exists
with the mind of an infant,
a body limp and tube-fed,
a scar-crossed chest.
But her mahogany eyes follow
my stethoscope, sparkle
at the sound of soft voices.
Pandora,
did your mother name you
with irony or unwittingly?
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
School Outing
Yesterday's paper carried an article about reopening a reconstructed trail situated on a bluff above the Mississippi River. Six years ago it gave way with tragic consequences.
I lived close enough at the time to hear the helicopters hovering above the area. The sound gnawed at my heart.
School Outing
Yesterday the bluff:
favored site for field trips
thick with trees
promise of arrowheads
freedom from books
the lesson unplanned
on shifting ground
Today only news choppers:
Life Flight no longer needed
after the mudslide
maimed two, claimed one
and left a fourth buried
too deep even for rescue dogs
to detect
Since sunrise:
the drone of rotors once more.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
I lived close enough at the time to hear the helicopters hovering above the area. The sound gnawed at my heart.
School Outing
Yesterday the bluff:
favored site for field trips
thick with trees
promise of arrowheads
freedom from books
the lesson unplanned
on shifting ground
Today only news choppers:
Life Flight no longer needed
after the mudslide
maimed two, claimed one
and left a fourth buried
too deep even for rescue dogs
to detect
Since sunrise:
the drone of rotors once more.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Ellis Island - 1919
Today is Mother's Day. A while back I wrote a poem about my own mother's entry as a young immigrant into this country. It is in the form of a sestina where the end words of the first six lines repeat throughout the poem.
I can only hope she would have liked it. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
Ellis Island - 1919
In her hand for luck a candy tin the shape
and size of a snuff box. In her Nordic blue
eyes wonder for Gustavino's vaulted ceiling,
capping the Great Hall. In her nose the scent
and sweat of people contained on crowded
ships now landed on America's front step,
Ellis Island. Lined up and directed to "Step
this way!" A doctor appraised her, felt the shape
of her twelve-year-old head, examined a crowd
of white teeth, approved her health with a blue
stamp. A man behind her, coughing blood, sent
back. To the wards? To the ship? TB sealing
his fate. In her ears echoing from the ceiling,
cacophony in a dozen languages, a step
away from chaos. Confusion when people sent
onward with new names. Mr. Duhamel reshaped
into Mr. Campbell. The Registrar misheard, blew
off their puzzled looks, inscribed lists crowded
with difficult names. Luggage vexed the crowds
jamming the floors, climbing to the ceiling.
A man of twenty tried to claim an untagged blue
steamer, listing its contents to an agent on the steps.
Identified it with shirts and socks, tried to shape
words to mark it his. Once opened, the scent
of mothballs erupted, and a forgotten accordion sent
a smile of recall across his face. Before the crowd
he picked up the instrument, played a polka, shaped
himself a future with others met under that ceiling,
broken English their common language, stepping
forward, ideas colored by the red, white and blue
promise of concerts to come. Cornflower blue
the color of her dress, hard-milled soap the scent
on her skin. Her father, here already, took the steps
by twos, searched for his family in the crowds.
Spying him, her laughter tickled the ceiling
as she settled quickly into his teddy-bear shape.
Two memories shaped her on Ellis Island: the blue-
lipped man with his scent of blood, and the crowd,
feet tapping to an accordion played under a grand ceiling.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
I can only hope she would have liked it. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
Ellis Island - 1919
In her hand for luck a candy tin the shape
and size of a snuff box. In her Nordic blue
eyes wonder for Gustavino's vaulted ceiling,
capping the Great Hall. In her nose the scent
and sweat of people contained on crowded
ships now landed on America's front step,
Ellis Island. Lined up and directed to "Step
this way!" A doctor appraised her, felt the shape
of her twelve-year-old head, examined a crowd
of white teeth, approved her health with a blue
stamp. A man behind her, coughing blood, sent
back. To the wards? To the ship? TB sealing
his fate. In her ears echoing from the ceiling,
cacophony in a dozen languages, a step
away from chaos. Confusion when people sent
onward with new names. Mr. Duhamel reshaped
into Mr. Campbell. The Registrar misheard, blew
off their puzzled looks, inscribed lists crowded
with difficult names. Luggage vexed the crowds
jamming the floors, climbing to the ceiling.
A man of twenty tried to claim an untagged blue
steamer, listing its contents to an agent on the steps.
Identified it with shirts and socks, tried to shape
words to mark it his. Once opened, the scent
of mothballs erupted, and a forgotten accordion sent
a smile of recall across his face. Before the crowd
he picked up the instrument, played a polka, shaped
himself a future with others met under that ceiling,
broken English their common language, stepping
forward, ideas colored by the red, white and blue
promise of concerts to come. Cornflower blue
the color of her dress, hard-milled soap the scent
on her skin. Her father, here already, took the steps
by twos, searched for his family in the crowds.
Spying him, her laughter tickled the ceiling
as she settled quickly into his teddy-bear shape.
Two memories shaped her on Ellis Island: the blue-
lipped man with his scent of blood, and the crowd,
feet tapping to an accordion played under a grand ceiling.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Recyclable World
To add insult to injury after our cabin flooded last spring, looters showed up hoping to score. Instead, they found themselves calling a friend for help when lake water seeped into their own vehicle.
Recyclable World
Perhaps looters like vultures
descending after a disaster
belong to a greater cycle of rebirth.
A lake grown powerful overnight
claims new real estate rights, clinches
eviction.
Still, it stings when the cabin
tucked in waterlogged woods
turns into spoils for punks
in a rust-bucket car,
but karma snags them, too.
As the driver spins tires
mired in water and sand,
we already knew
what the vandals don't mark
the forest and wetlands do.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
Recyclable World
Perhaps looters like vultures
descending after a disaster
belong to a greater cycle of rebirth.
A lake grown powerful overnight
claims new real estate rights, clinches
eviction.
Still, it stings when the cabin
tucked in waterlogged woods
turns into spoils for punks
in a rust-bucket car,
but karma snags them, too.
As the driver spins tires
mired in water and sand,
we already knew
what the vandals don't mark
the forest and wetlands do.
Marilyn Aschoff Mellor
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