Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Black Sheep

The trees are turning, and I have always wondered about the firs that drop their needles. It wan't until I discovered this was normal for Larches, otherwise known as tamaracks. I wrote about this worry in a previous poem.


Black Sheep


I fretted for the tamaracks, naively.


Patches of yellowed pines

dropping needles on October breezes.

A study of struggle in sepia, wasteland

tableaus within evergreen forests.


Searching for bark beetles or blight,

I thumbed my Field Guide, discovered 

the truth of this imagined disaster.


Come autumn these conifers

follow a beat of their own, shedding

bow ties, cummerbunds and all,

much to the family's chagrin.  



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

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Black Sheep

The trees are turning, and I have always wondered about the firs that drop their needles. It wan't until I discovered this was normal fo...