Author: Jill Madden Melchoir

Poet, cyclist, mother, lawyer, daughter, nature-lover, wife, photographer. Fan of Yeats, John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Wes Anderson, the Impressionists, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Martin Luther, Jesus. Not in that order.

Sap, Rising

March 14, 2021

this blustery March afternoon I’m crossing what is still my back yard for a time drill in hand, a spile, a bright blue bag – 38 degrees, sandals skirting dried dog poop among brown leaves that fell, bright, the autumn before; the hole on the underside of the spile, yesterday confounded me but the sap … More Sap, Rising

Friluftsliv

January 24, 2021

Slips and skips from the lips, it frees me from this bees’ nest wherein barren technology stings and wrings joy from the days, it plucks me from the luckless hum of air conditioning and fair renditions of elevator tunes and spoons me into the bracing air heart racing there and the snow falling, flakes enthralling … More Friluftsliv

Riverine

January 24, 2021

Takes me in its teeth, it’s a sleek wolverine shaking off glassine beads of the setting sun, gleaming over the river cold and clean; Riverine carries me in its furling current; my soul adamantine, unchanging, always changing, the lean walleye and muskies now follow me, hollow seems what we leave upstream, the tangerine sun bleeds … More Riverine

Fire and the Deep

January 4, 2021

I am burning through the decades, not figuratively as I finish my first fifth decade, no literally onto this bonfire I am pitching husks of barnacles like Porterfield Elementary autograph books, 40 years of birthday cards, Christmas photos, school concert programs, playbills, ticket stubs, pay stubs, tree bark, blurry photos, zoo photos, tree photos, maps … More Fire and the Deep

Uneasy Welkin, Sunday Preach (Or, the AI Algorithm Jumps the Creek)

November 23, 2020

I. Pareidolia From far out, it appears to be art, but up close you see the ruse, the picnickers in the glade in Waiting for the Bride have no faces, or melted faces, and the Lost Horse has hind quarters that are really tree limbs, bent, and really there is no horse at all. Overwhelmed … More Uneasy Welkin, Sunday Preach (Or, the AI Algorithm Jumps the Creek)

In Which Dogs Sniff out the Virus and Save the World, And Also Get Treats

September 25, 2020

They say that dogs can sniff out COVID in passengers at the Helsinki airport, offering a paw, or lying down – (even in this job, dogs are on our side – “I’m sorry,” they say with a paw, “you’re positive, but I will lie here with you.”) with near 100% accuracy. Maybe they smell it … More In Which Dogs Sniff out the Virus and Save the World, And Also Get Treats