Mushrooms
by Rina Ferrarelli
A strange efflorescence
on the lawn where hidden
roots and stumps
lie below the surface.
Was it the rain, the sun
after rain, the red moon
that caused such profusion?
They glow in the morning
in the silver blue of dusk,
open, and turn inside out
in the bright midday sun–
empty bowls held up to the sky–
split around the edges
into odd-shaped petals.
Smooth and rough
all covered with fragments
of the universal veil.
A few push up close to the ground
without visible stipes
bronze and gold fluted leaves
like coral of the woods
the color of regret.
Edible agarics or poisonous
amanitas? I wish I knew.
There was never a season,
a gathering place.
Our time together short.
Dead in their thirties,
or scattered widely
across two continents,
my people took this
and other kinds of knowledge
with them when they went.
