On Growing Older

Someone close to me celebrated a 50th birthday this week, but it seems only yesterday that she was born. Where does the time go? The lament of all of us lucky enough to ponder life from a far shore even as we begrudge our own aging.



On Growing Older


A pebble
picked up while strolling
through life. Roll it
across your fingers.

Turn it, touch it.
Feel sandpaper surfaces
and smooth contours,
surprise angles, quirky edges.

Toss it, reject it
only to one day discover it
back inside your shoe.
Stuck.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Late/Harvest

Yes, another a late blog - 'tis the season. Within the last week I read that farm bankruptcies are on the rise in the upper midwest once again. When I drive the long stretches of open farmland across southern Minnesota I have lots of opportunity to speculate about many things. Forlorn looking farmsteads being one of them.



Late/Harvest


Molten clouds filter a metallic sun
above cornstalks stripped by a combine
bumping up against Thanksgiving.
A sprint to bring in crops rain delayed.

The farmhouse sighs beside a grove
of hardwoods, bony fingers pointing.
Overdue notices
weight the kitchen counter.

Outside a tree-swing ebbs
and flows on prairie winds in this rush
to reap payments.  Snow threatens.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Vespers

I miss two things that comprised a big part of my life: our cabin retreat and, yes, my ER work. Simply put, they balanced each other.

Someday, we hope to reestablish a cabin life. And if anyone can create an ER without stress, rotating shifts, and weekends, I'm your person.



Vespers


A ten-year-old girl covered with hives

                    Miles into midnight countryside

Wheezing hard, unable to speak
Blood pressure levels slipping fast

                    Winter solstice weather
                     Crystalline and cold

In the ER a dance of rescue unfolds
Drugs slam home, infuse, relax

                    The wrap of blackness broken
                    Beneath a billion star sky

Breathing slower, a faint smile: good signs

                     Looking up, we feel almost divine.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Art of Communication

I am off-schedule this week due to travels. Nothing nearly as befuddling as a trip to Scotland last spring but, rather, a journey comfortable as an old sweater to spend time with a son and his family.

The Art of Communication

On a train to Glasgow

a porter pushed a cart containing

food and drink, offering selections

in an accent so thick

I understood but a single "Awrite,

Darlin'" before his words jumbled

my ears.

Before an affable citizen directed me

to a street he called "Sucky Hall"

in that hilly, chilly, windy city.

Before Google Maps failed me,

and the sign labeled Sauchiehall

made sense two rainy blocks

and an inverted umbrella later.

Before I ordered haggis unaware

of its makeup: sheep's "pluck"

- heart, liver, and lungs -

at the waiter's suggestion

for a savory starter,

and served with a trace of a smile.

Before a taxi driver baffled me

with "Hou's it gaun?"

Before I discovered a lingua franca

spoken in those Lowlands:

"A glass of scotch, please."

Before a briefly raised eyebrow

hinted at an order

a bit more than an expected "wee dram."

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

 

Cantata

This has been a fall of overcast skies, obnoxious ads by political candidates, and ever shortening days. But one gloomy morning an unexpected delight reached my ears.



Cantata


I swear it's a robin I hear singing
outside my November window
though his mates skipped town long ago.

What prompts this outpouring of cheer
in a dull autumn dominated
by damp chills and rain, political ads
and pipe bombs?

Did a buffeting wind skew his course,
and does he sing for courage?
Or is he warning of another storm
on the horizon?

Perhaps it's an unwavering belief
in bluebonnet skies
obscured by this month of misgivings.

No matter the motive
his solo a gift, a lift of the heart
in these divisive times.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Fall Cleaning

The wind woke me during the middle of the night, and continues to howl this morning. The hardwoods have been subjected to a shakedown, but any thoughts of raking will have to wait.



Fall Cleaning


The wind cleaned house last night and stripped the trees
Of defiant leaves snubbing autumn's bite.
The tenor's changed, gone is the gentle breeze.

Buffeting bass and concertina wheeze
Found the pitch and played the rafters right.
The wind cleaned house last night and stripped the trees.

Scrubbed them, rubbed them with rain ready to freeze.
Scoured the streets, polished them bright.
The tenor's changed, gone is the gentle breeze

Of Indian summer along with the melodies
Of robins and warblers singing daylight.
The wind cleaned house last night and stripped the trees.

Forced the move of reluctant chick-a-dees,
Tore down makeshift nests in a fit of spite.
The tenor's changed, gone is the gentle breeze.

Arctic blasts blew in with icicle keys,
Unlocked the box holding winter's birthright.
The wind cleaned house last night and stripped the trees,
The tenor's changed, gone is the gentle breeze.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Necessary Groundwork to Weather Prairie Driven Blizzards

I am one of the younger members of a book club about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It has been a joy not only listening to multiple takes on a wide range of literature, but also getting to know every one of the ladies.

Unfortunately, the rate of attrition has been steadily increasing, but the group that remains is as lively as ever.



Necessary Groundwork
to Weather Prairie Driven Blizzards


Autumn and a stand of oaks,
summer's grande dames fading.

The visible hint a new henna rinse
in their foliage.

These trees sense the need
to conserve crucial sap, tolerate

weakened branches, and ignore
the growing hollows in their core

like time undermining
the matriarchs of my book club.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Channeling Weather

I miss our weekends at the cabin especially in autumn when the colors of the maples and birch and oaks turn vibrant. I even miss north wood nights that dip below freezing, carrying the promise of an early snow.

For now the entire acreage, including the cabin, remains under water. And it has shifted into a long game of wait and see.



Channeling Weather


At the cabin no TV, no internet to batter my brain with highs and lows or isobar maps. Instead, I gather Northern Lights beneath the Big Dipper, wait for weeping skies to wash my hair, play kickball with the wind, knit October sunshine into December mittens, jumprope with willows, and filter fog through my fingers while you consult an iPhone app to tell my vanishing back "It's sleeting!" as slush pings against the panes, and me already outside, sampling snow cones on the fly.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

WWI: Switzerland

A century ago WWI in its last days continued to make itself felt even in European countries not caught up in the conflict.

My mother often reminisced about her childhood in Switzerland in those years of going without, and her father already in America waiting for their arrival delayed by the war.



WWI: Switzerland


Next door
the Marne and the Somme.
I was like the Princess
with her nonsense pea,
bemoaning a lack of oranges
and pebble knots in stockings
darned instead of discarded.

Empty shelf years
broken once with a celebration:
Oma and Opa's 50th anniversary.
I imagined our offering to be gold,
jewelry for her, cufflinks for him.
But all my pleas for a grand gift
only brought head shaking.

Cheeks burning,
prodded by my mother
I handed them our beribboned box,
confused when they proclaimed it
their favorite present of all:
a half-kilo of coffee beans
trailing earthy aromas.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Intern's Lament

Last night I attended a farewell party for a colleague of mine now headed south to a new job in New Orleans. I couldn't help but recall the very beginning of my own career as a bright-eyed doc ready to take on the world.

Little did any of us know what awaited that first year on the pediatric wards with no defenses against even common viruses that kids harbor. By the second year our force shields were almost impervious.



Intern's Lament


How many sneezes in the face
does it take to take down
a pediatrician in training?

How many doorknobs harbor
dastardly pink-eye, waiting to pounce
like a villain from an action cartoon?

How many tummy upsets
turn the tables on newly minted docs
causing them to bolt from the room?

How long 'til the mucous man
rooms with a resident,
unpacks a sack of sniffles and snot?

How many hours turn into a staycation
on the couch, fighting a fever,
sleeping through precious time off?

How many kid diseases rule
before antibodies activate superpowers,
and this rite of passage passes?



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor  

Limited Visibility

The I-90 corridor along southern Minnesota stretches across open prairie. Easy to drive on nice days, and a bugaboo during bad weather of any kind. Heavy rain dogged me this trip but thick fog has haunted me on more than one occasion.



Limited Visibility


Wind turbines, pale giants swallowed
by ghost clouds, spin layered vapor
floating over the plains.

Warning signs and raised crossbars
prepared to halt highway traffic
loom and recede like prairie phantoms.

Drifting snow and blizzards trigger
extended arms/alarms, but diaphanous fog,
famous for pileups, holds no leverage.

                            *

Uninvited passengers,
a throbbing headache and white knuckles,
slide in for the ride.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Summertime Riff

It's mid-September and the noisy cicadas have gone but the crickets continue to natter. It's mid-September and still the heat of extended summer makes for sweltering nights. It's mid-September but it feels like the dog days persist, heat advisories and all.



Summertime Riff


The jazz of crickets
lulls me to sleep on sticky
August nights. Like the steady
thrum of a Bourbon Street beat
it floats through my wide-flung window
long past "Last call."

When the sultry sun rises
I wake to these jam sessions
finally winding down
as one by one the players pack it in,
amused by the ants already hustling
at first light.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Uncle Ben

My father came from a farming family, and I remember summers spent in the country with two uncles and an aunt, siblings all, still working the land. Of the three of them, Ben left the biggest impression.



Uncle Ben


A wide-mouthed jar brimful
with change, and sitting out
in the open on his dresser
proved to me at age eight
what a wealthy man he must be.
I paid scant notice to his worn
overalls and the back-firing tractor.

He taught me my first salty words,
how to milk a cow without getting kicked,
that Kool-Aid without sugar was only
colored well-water and just as bitter,
exactly the way he liked it.

I acted as his co-pilot when we drove
to town. He surveyed the crops
while I watched the road, gravel pinging
all the way to O'Toole's Bar. A beer
and a bump for him and without asking
always a mouth puckering Squirt for me.

He cursed the noon market reports,
swatting at the airwaves with his thick,
calloused hand, thought it a joke
to toss my straw hat into the hay baler,
and bluffed strangers with his gruffness.

More grizzly than teddy bear, he once
let me hide in his arms during a hailstorm,
and I think I saw him smile.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Linguistics in a Nutshell

It's been a few years since my grandson gathered medieval looking conkers, but I clearly remember their prickly appearance. Last I checked, no chestnut trees menace our neighborhood. It's only the black walnuts we contend with.



Linguistics in a Nutshell


My grandson collected conkers
fallen from a chestnut tree
on a leafy street in London.
And I puzzled over the odd,
British moniker for this glossy nut
bundled in a spiky shell
until acorns, elfin in comparison,
pelted my head from an oak
found at home three months
and a turn of the globe later.

At least the black walnut held its fire.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor