Mycelium
Mushrooms rising after rain like punctuation marks,
like a thought the earth has finished.
Beneath the dirt’s dark shrug.
A thousand white threads.
Like the wisdom of white hair
and its thousand stories.
Sugar travels from one tree to another.
Nutrients exchanged.
Warnings passing underground.
The dying feeding the living.
The living feeding the dying.
In the dark, in the damp,
the dirt is quietly helping.
The dirt always helping.
Holding roots.
Holding water.
Holding entire histories.
Maple leaf becoming soil.
Tree becoming forest.
A fallen log softens into sponge.
A mushroom pushes through.
The white threads persist.
Have we ever left the garden?
