Sunny

Rain drenched the north woods this past week, dumping over ten inches one stormy night, flooding roads and cabins, our own included, and claiming two lives in the process. It is hard to remember the dryness of the forest and the unexpected sandbars uncovered by the lake only a few years back. If only that were the problem now.



Sunny


A lazy pontoon day
on a lake grown smaller,
leaving mudflats and marshes
beneath extended docks,
revealing the island's geological
layers, exposing the nests of loons
and geese, water grasses gone.
Four years lost already,
slippery minnows through a net.
The old-timers talk of cycles,
the cabin owners shake their heads,
the water ripples carefree as bare feet,
plovers still play along the shoreline
and For Sale signs take root out front.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor