Summertime Recon

Languid, summer days always bring me back to my childhood and the time spent on the farm belonging to my dad's siblings every July or August.



Summertime Recon


Two bachelor-farmer uncles
and their spinster sister:
three adults content to let

a city kid run free in a fiefdom
surrounding their farmhouse.

In the side-yard a monster tree
with one arm brandishes
a rough plank swing, swaying
from bewhiskered ropes.

To the north thrives a shelter-belt,
commandos in the guise of gnarled oaks
and elms, guarding the yard.

If any foe makes it through, they face
the dicey territory of chickens
and a lone rooster, spurs at the ready,
beak aimed at anyone in his path.

Should an intruder avoid being pecked
to death, the smell of the adjacent privy
would hit him like a blunderbuss.

To the south and west, barbed wire
bridles the threat of endless plains.

Perimeters secured I tend the threshold,
sunburnt and thirsty. But what to drink?
Fresh milk tasting of prairie scrub

or well-water smacking of minerals?
Unsweetened Kool-Aid, the Major General's
preferred quaff, or a cup of cold coffee?

Like a sack of pellets emptied from a low
flying cloud, an ambush of pea-sized hail
pummels my head as I dash inside.

Our only course of action lay with the rosary beads
already in the hands of my aunt; my uncles
wet, cursing, and not so certain.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unsteady Star

The comet NEOWISE has been in our sky lately. I have yet to see it. In a different part of the heavens a large star in the Constellation of Orion may be in trouble, and that one is visible to the naked eye.



Unsteady Star


Betelgeuse, a beguiling superstar
in Orion and more strapping
than our sun, flickers like a stuttering

lightbulb from flashes of brilliance
to funks of murkiness,
revealing erratic pulsations
of an unstable patient.

Burning, churning
and expending its fuel,
pressured by internal shadows,
destined for collapse, perhaps.

But this extrasolar luminary,
tagged as semi-regular, may merely
be dimming randomly, puckishly

like my friend when he chose to scorn
his bipolar meds.

But the star a survivor, not a postscript
                                                  thus far.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Sleeping Outdoors

As many of you know, Minnesota's other state bird is the mosquito. And some of them have been known to drift eastward to Wisconsin where I encounter them.

My feelings about these insects can be intuited in this Found Poem - a rearrangement of words written for a different context.



Sleeping Outdoors
   
    A Found Poem from McCormick's
    "Hang Time," Minnesota Monthly,
    May/June 2019


In mosquito country, pack heat
or back away.

Wild bugs parachute in,
hang from trees on the trail,
angle for a better view of you.

Primed to strap themselves
to backs and butts

they can sweep away the goal
of completing a trail run

or shave comfort from viewing
stars on a summer's evening.

The most common mistake
lies in forgetting netting
at snooze time.

That closer-to-nature feeling?
Not that appealing.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unmoored in Time

On a recent morning walk up at the cabin I encountered a pair of sandhill cranes hustling across the road in front of me. They surprised me since these birds are not typically found in forested land. But then I did see one last summer, too, along with a brutal reminder that nature is not all sweetness.



Unmoored in Time


An eagle on the hunt
marks a lone crane, listless
and drifting on the lake.

Heartbreaking shrieks
at the attack of claws and beak.
The day rubber-bands
until the predator breaks away.

Neck still arched, the stunned target
maintains its grace, circling
then slipping to a sodden grave.

Tetracords and trilobites belch.

The rest of the forest silent
except for an "Adagio for Strings"
filtered by cabin screens and screes

of a hawk relentlessly rebuking
his competitor.

Finally, the pterosaur flies off, leaving      
bucolic shambles warping his backwash.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor