Gully

Back to the cabin this weekend. Back to higher lake levels and filling wetlands. Back to a raw northeast wind and a slow but constant rain. Unlike the two day downpour of last spring that cost three people their lives, but raising the water table just as effectively.



Gully


Rain-besotted ground, tree roots rotting,
dry land no longer but true boreal bog.
Blue spruce waterlogged, day-trippers tripped up.

Stalled rainclouds sent rivers rampaging,
buckling roadways.
Three careless souls overwhelmed
by rushing water,
caught in separate nets of rashness.

Northwood news but not national. No one
live-streaming mayhem from black-top roads.
Only a doe and her fawn
attempting to leap a ditch turned floodway,
and a slow moving car with out-of-state plates.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor