Apples to Oranges

The 2019 Hurricane Season officially started yesterday, June 1st. But the devastation done by storms in prior years lingers on.

Massive flooding in the Midwest, currently, dominating the news, carries similar calamitous results. Take it from somebody who knows.



Apples to Oranges


No storm surges or tidal flows,
no gale force gusts
lash our lake up North.

Here, ill-tempered winds
kick up white-caps,
act like a fist-pounding toddler

enough to jostle bass boats and push
clueless canoeists against a far shore

send lily pads pitching on swells,
and fish hustling to the calm below.

But down South, oceans
barrel through Gulf Coast doors.

                       *

A cloudburst floods the forest.

Our brimming lake overspills
banks, and seeps under doorsills,
sluicing cabin floors.

No tempest with a name,
no buffeting blows, only water
remodeling.

                       *

At storm's end apples and oranges
and the same taste of fruit gone bad.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Trick of the Gods

The kids I cared for in the ER came with a variety of names. Granted, a lot of them were white bread like Emma and Lucas but any number of them were not.

A few names have stayed with me mostly for their quirkiness: La - sha (La dash sha) and SSSST (Forest). But I remember one patient because of a name that described her circumstances precisely.



A Trick of the Gods


Before me in the ER
lies a twelve-year-old girl,
bearing a name known
to the ancients.

Having slid into this world
too soon, she exists
with the mind of an infant,
a body limp and tube-fed,
a scar-crossed chest.

But her mahogany eyes follow
my stethoscope, sparkle
at the sound of soft voices.

Pandora,
did your mother name you
with irony or unwittingly?



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

School Outing

Yesterday's paper carried an article about reopening a reconstructed trail situated on a bluff above the Mississippi River. Six years ago it gave way with tragic consequences.

I lived close enough at the time to hear the helicopters hovering above the area. The sound gnawed at my heart.



School Outing


Yesterday the bluff:
favored site for field trips
       thick with trees
promise of arrowheads
       freedom from books
the lesson unplanned
       on shifting ground

Today only news choppers:
Life Flight no longer needed
       after the mudslide
maimed two, claimed one
       and left a fourth buried
too deep even for rescue dogs
       to detect

Since sunrise:
the drone of rotors once more.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Ellis Island - 1919

Today is Mother's Day. A while back I wrote a poem about my own mother's entry as a young immigrant into this country. It is in the form of a sestina where the end words of the first six lines repeat throughout the poem.

I can only hope she would have liked it. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.



Ellis Island - 1919


In her hand for luck a candy tin the shape
and size of a snuff box. In her Nordic blue
eyes wonder for Gustavino's vaulted ceiling,
capping the Great Hall. In her nose the scent
and sweat of people contained on crowded
ships now landed on America's front step,

Ellis Island. Lined up and directed to "Step
this way!" A doctor appraised her, felt the shape
of her twelve-year-old head, examined a crowd
of white teeth, approved her health with a blue
stamp. A man behind her, coughing blood, sent
back. To the wards? To the ship? TB sealing

his fate. In her ears echoing from the ceiling,
cacophony in a dozen languages, a step
away from chaos. Confusion when people sent
onward with new names. Mr. Duhamel reshaped
into Mr. Campbell. The Registrar misheard, blew
off their puzzled looks, inscribed lists crowded

with difficult names. Luggage vexed the crowds
jamming the floors, climbing to the ceiling.
A man of twenty tried to claim an untagged blue
steamer, listing its contents to an agent on the steps.
Identified it with shirts and socks, tried to shape
words to mark it his. Once opened, the scent

of mothballs erupted, and a forgotten accordion sent
a smile of recall across his face. Before the crowd
he picked up the instrument, played a polka, shaped
himself a future with others met under that ceiling,
broken English their common language, stepping
forward, ideas colored by the red, white and blue

promise of concerts to come. Cornflower blue
the color of her dress, hard-milled soap the scent
on her skin. Her father, here already, took the steps
by twos, searched for his family in the crowds.
Spying him, her laughter tickled the ceiling
as she settled quickly into his teddy-bear shape.

Two memories shaped her on Ellis Island: the blue-
lipped man with his scent of blood, and the crowd,
feet tapping to an accordion played under a grand ceiling.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Recyclable World

To add insult to injury after our cabin flooded last spring, looters showed up hoping to score. Instead, they found themselves calling a friend for help when lake water seeped into their own vehicle.



Recyclable World


Perhaps looters like vultures
descending after a disaster
belong to a greater cycle of rebirth.

A lake grown powerful overnight
claims new real estate rights, clinches
eviction.

Still, it stings when the cabin
tucked in waterlogged woods

turns into spoils for punks
in a rust-bucket car,
but karma snags them, too.

As the driver spins tires
mired in water and sand,

we already knew
what the vandals don't mark
the forest and wetlands do.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Tilt

This past week we were up North for the first time since our cabin flooded ten months ago. We knew from neighbors that the water still had not receded as the lake has no outlet and the ground is saturated.

We weren't prepared to see that the water level had risen even higher, making the flooding worse. Time to find a new cabin.



Tilt


In the maw, in the nighttime storm.

The bloated lake
could not contain fifteen inches
of pounding rain.

Daylight delivered submerged
docks and fire-rings,
dwellings moored in shallows.

Yet warblers sang from pines
trapped in the overflow,
and butterflies flitted untroubled.

But armies of mosquitoes
ambushed us, targets in slo-mo
retrieving wayward boats.

Inside, a drifting boot bumped
against the defunct 'frig no one
wished to open.

Cabin life shelved
until the lake backtracks, slips out
the front door.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

April Ablutions

Obstinate bits of snow dot the city, especially, in sheltered spots or in designated areas of major parking lots, dumped there by city trucks throughout the winter. A few Aprils back I noticed this same phenomena outside my townhouse.



April Ablutions


Like a curved blade covered
with shaving cream
recently scraped from a face,
a stubborn scrim of snow
hugs the ground in front
of a shiny, maroon car.
The rest of the lather washed
away in a morning shower.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Fabulist

One last post from the UK. A year ago I rode with a driver from the airport to my daughter's home in London. Let's just say I found him to be a chatty fellow.



Fabulist


The driver from Heathrow,
cut from fair Anglo-Saxon cloth,
chatted like Chaucer, weaving tales
as we wound our way thru London.

"The truth about the Russian spies
poisoned here? A frame-up aimed at Putin
by sloppy Ukrainians. Those two would
be dead if the order originated in Moscow."

The scenery blurred at motorway speeds.

Eyebrows raised, bushy with innuendo,
he asked, "You ever wonder about the French
President with his 'dandy' clothes and older wife?
Not a manly man, if you catch my drift."

The car slowed as we exited the off-ramp,
windows closed, doors secured.

"And then there's the biggest threat
of all - Merkel and her ilk. Opening
their arms to millions of immigrants.
A sea-tide of undesirables, if ever I saw one."

His monologue drowned out dissent.

Without warning, the blackened hull
of Grenfell Tower hovered on our right,
palpable sadness burnt into the ruin.

But the driver, on a different frequency,
could not hear the migrant histories wafting
through empty windows, nor sense the struggles
on overloaded rafts, resettlement camps.

Despite its cool interior, the car felt stifling
until I recognized the noisy jay that he was,
squawking against a changing world.

At the end of the journey I hesitated
but could not withhold a gratuity. Despite all,
a working man voicing his opinions.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Brexit

Found poetry is created by lifting words or phrases from other sources and reframing them. And that's what I've done this week. My source being Elson's Pocket Music Dictionary published in 1909.

I, also, feel this week's poem is appropriate since it's coming to you from London.



Brexit


The Conductor holds forth
with her latest score created
within the rules of harmony.

The movement, a fundamental
fugue, requires brilliant execution.

Discord intrudes. Five voices
in close relation clash
with a counterpoint in four parts.

The musicians orchestrate stops
as the Maestro stresses an interpretation
played from the EU songbook.

But her leitmotif, a theme
without variation, remains
over-sung by runs of dissonance.

Full dress rehearsals,
and the coda not yet arranged.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Grand Canyon Tour

I recently spent a week in Arizona. As I flew back to Minnesota, the pilot made mention of the Grand Canyon off to our left. His comments brought back memories of another flight taken years ago over that very site. I never did fare well in small planes.



Grand Canyon Tour


A small, fixed-wing plane
bounced like a striped ball
from updraft to cold current
over plunges and pinnacles.
The pilot smiled, settled in,
but a few of us cringed.

Rivers and ridges and bands
of rust layered out below
but its grandeur could not
compete with the focus given
a ragged white sack clutched
by me seated in the back.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Lessons Learned from the Flood

In the news, videos from the terrible flooding in Nebraska this spring. Unfortunately, I can commiserate with those caught in the mess. The land around our cabin up north remains under water nine months on. A total loss but, fortunately, not our primary residence.



Lessons Learned from the Flood


All manner of footwear floats. I expected flip-flops to greet me on slow moving currents in the inundated cabin. But fleece scuffs and work boots? Like pop-ups in a Fun House, they jangled my bare legs, nudged my nerves. And so did the bobbing ant-traps, forlorn as empty life rafts. Wreckage everywhere: non-closing, swollen doors, a soggy futon turned mutant sponge, and defunct appliances moored in water. That's when I heard the lapsed flood insurance policy laughing from a bureau drawer. And forget FEMA; we failed even their basic disaster parameters. Outside, the lake swirled over the lawn, eliminating the option to take a break on the grass and absorb some sun. A survey of the damage from the kayak or canoe might have distracted us, but they washed away along with the dock. And then there was the propane tank. More dangerous than a jellyfish on the loose, it floated off, trailing tendrils of vapor until the gas guys hauled it away. Did I mention minnows darting in the drive? Perhaps I can set a rod from the kitchen window, and snag a perch in passing.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Navajo Blanket - Circa 1860

I spent the past week in Phoenix with an afternoon in Old Town Scottsdale. Native American pottery and blankets abound, but few are old school. Those artifacts can be found in the Heard Musuem, promoting the cultures and arts of American Indians in the Southwest.



Navajo Blanket - Circa 1860


I am the soft wool
of the shorn sheep
spun once for yarn,
twice for strength.

Steamed berries, bark
transformed me
into warrior red
and starless black,
colors of a chief's blanket.

A dark-eyed woman
in an Arizona canyon
with hands tough
from grinding corn
and soft from mothering,
patterned my soul
into a storyteller.

Long after she tied the last
of my four corner knots
my voice remains witness.

I warmed her children
in chill desert nights,
protected them
from pitting winds
but could not save them
from the wrath
of government soldiers.

I was rolled, tied
behind the saddle
of a rifleman,
roamed the high deserts,
was lost to a gambler
from Denver
who had no use for me.
Nor did his sweetheart.

Years of neglect
in a dusty back room
fixed my memories:
smoky grey streaks
from campfires,
ground-in dust
from arid mesas,
a rusty brown stain
from the Indian wars.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Supplication

In the forest surrounding our cabin lives a special pine. But unless the floods of last summer recede the normal life span of this tree is threatened once again.



Supplication


Sacred tree, holy pine
I am speaking to you.

My friend rescued you from the storm spirit
which uprooted your neighbor

slammed it to earth,
crowding your young trunk

bending your spine like a crone's.
He learned to use a saw as an old man

to save you from the intruder's dead weight.
Each summer he cut further into its girth

worked to angle through the log
and split the encroaching fir,

his blade slowed by gnarled hands.
Three years of puny dreams

before you sprang free of the wind god's curse.
These days I find you in a forest

regal as a young lord,
see the breadth of your branches

hiding the c-shape in your back.
Remember how he helped you as a sapling.

Sacred tree, holy pine
I am speaking to you.

Impart, now, strength to his granddaughter
whose spine, they say, is curved.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Breezy Confidence of the Untested

I subscribe to "Lake Superior Magazine." Occasionally, the editor slips in pictures of young couples on their wedding day in the deep winter of the far north. One photo in particular stays with me. The joy of this pair shines like a beacon through the swirling snowfall.



The Breezy Confidence of the Untested


They stand in the beginning
of a blizzard,
this wedding couple.
The wind carrying her veil,
lifting his lapel, their cheeks ruddy
as the crimson lodge behind them.
Laughter tweaks their smiles
like eager kids told to pose
but ready for sledding and snowballs
and games like King of the Mountain.
Mulled wine waiting within.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor