Unnerving

We spent the last week at the cabin and I heard the most terrifying noise. As a matter of fact, it continues to haunt me, and deserves a repeat of my original poem.

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

                             the wailing cry

                                                           of a siren

sends shivers pulsing. From my days in the ER

          too many minutes choke the clock

             in the wake of a rural calamity.

That wavering hum,

                        the deadliest sound in the forest.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor