Balm

Last night I had dinner with a good friend of mine, a medical colleague in town to present Grand Rounds at the U of MN. Later, prior experiences as an ER physician peppered my dreams. And I saw the Northern Lights once more.



Balm


Depleted after an ER shift branded
by chaos, I turn north in the night:
a pulsing emerald sky.

My heart spellbound
as a child cupping a butterfly,
my head hammered by horns honking.

                         *

On my balcony I wrap
against witching-hour air

eyes wandering the lime-lit cosmos
until Hypnos, god of sleep,
brushes my cheek

and the image of a mother
cradling her lifeless infant
recedes into my closet of sorrows.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor