May Haiku in Minnesota

This last weekend reminded me that rainy days are common in May in Minnesota. And that summer's warmth sometimes doesn't come as quickly as we would like.



May Haiku in Minnesota


The furnace kicks on,
rain swells the fields, rivers pound,
hamstrung farmers curse.

Frogs in pop-up ponds
brazenly hum vibratos
of piercing desire.

Across the city
tulips and dandelions
burst forth, heads unbowed.

Blooming crabapples
swamp the eyes with magenta
even as they droop.

The siren of spring
calls through raindrops, promising
days drenched in honey

and a prime belief
in the drumbeat of sunshine
beneath sullen clouds.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Transients

The first day of spring officially falls on the Vernal Equinox in late March. But in the Northland the weather pays no attention to dates.



Transients


At the cabin up north
on this first day of spring

diamonds carpet the deck

as if little people labored
through the night in mines
beneath leftover snow

scattering their finds with abandon.

Mica flashing in moonlight
and morning sunshine only.

Ephemera vanishing by midday
like the dashed hopes
for a Happy Hour with friends

or a swift demise of the lethal virus
now trending in our biosphere.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Repose

Mother's Day here in the States fell this past Sunday, triggering memories of my own mom. I wrote a series of poems about her in the last years of her life, and here is one of them.



Repose


How many afternoons
do I find you drifting?

Still willful as a two-year-old,
still the gracious doctor's wife.

Head burnishing the rocker,
wig aslant, almost asleep

eyes closed, mouth open,
open book yawning at Chapter Two.

At ninety you protest any need
for a nap, ignore advice to the contrary.

Like Busch, your once beloved
German shepherd, you sit content

with the quiet, resting in mid-day
languor, aware.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Fates Have Cast their Dice at her Birth

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is set for this coming Sunday in Minneapolis. A long held fundraiser to fight breast cancer this year has become virtual.

No blocking off streets in my neighborhood for the event. No sea of participants wearing pink. No trigger for tears as I watch from my window. You see, a few years back the race turned personal.



The Fates Have Cast their Dice at her Birth


A photo of a youngish woman
pivots to me from the obits
of today's newsprint.

Breast cancer placing her there.

Three years disease free
until she wasn't.

Three years out
from disfigurement by scalpel,
poisonous rays, searing drugs.

My jack-in-the-box heart
bounds from my ribs

as my own daughter
continues year three of Tamoxifen.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor