Unnerving

The sound of gunfire in the city scares me witless, but not so in the countryside. Conversely, the wail of a siren, so common in urban areas, frightens me while at the cabin.

Unnerving

Dawn spreads like a freshly

cracked egg over the rim of the world.

A red-bellied woodpecker tattoos

a tired oak, a pair of trumpeter swans

                                      pulsate contentment

and the surreal calls of loons croon.

Above all this

                          a whispered sigh

                                                         of a siren.

                   From my days in the ER

            too many minutes clutter the clock

               in the wake of a rural calamity.

That wavering hum,

                   the deadliest sound in the forest.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor