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