Can
you find a rhyme or reason for mushrooms?
Can
you even define them
the
fleshy spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus
that’s
Wikipedia for you.
Do mushrooms
appear after it rains
in the
autumn
when
there is a dead tree
after
fairies have danced?
A colony
of fairies must live in my yard.
Fungus
we are told is an underground tree root communicator
some people
can tell edible from poisonous
toadstool
denotes the latter
I
would never try!
Lately
mushrooms light up the forest
white
cream yellow orange red
one
day a little ball
the
next a full umbrella
or
other fantastic shape
maybe a clumped colony
or something
that looks like ocean coral
on the forest floor on a dead tree
higher up where you don't think to look
some tiny unremarkable
others dramatic showy
look at the size of that thing!
They vanish quickly.
Fungi appear
to be (mostly) friends of the forest
our friends
too
in
ways we do not yet fully comprehend.
