Today’s Tuesday Poetics prompt at the dVerse Poets Pub is all about fungi. Mushroom poems–and I was just looking at Alice in Wonderland images. I had so many ideas while reading the prompt poems. Here goes:
Fungous Circle
My Swedish Mom took me mushroom hunting
specifically for chanterelles, small orange ruffles hiding
among the stones and birch one would think obvious
but for a tween too elusive.
I thought fungus was gross as was all food
but she caught my attention as she pointed out
the important signs of poison.
Like the beautiful little wild flowers that
sprung through the forest floor after the winter waned
I had been kept ignorant, though a curious child.
Now, it is understandable that I hadn’t been guided
to see, to hunt, to appreciate
each unique cap, each frill of a delicate gill,
each stalk and ring.
When our mushrooms grow from septic or near run-off
my wild palate wasn’t encouraged
free food can be dangerous
I was already known to eat flowers.
Taught the circle of life, I saw
the little trees growing from the fallen as
I traipsed across the canyon.
I told my parents I would be buried there.
They denied me. Said it couldn’t be done.
But now, it’s clear, I was not the only one.
To be put in a sack, made of mushroom spores
And planted, it’s happening, possible.
Then I read people are making mushroom sneakers.
Do I want to be stinky feet? That run comfortably and well.
I want to be a tree.
Experience Writing 
Mushroom hunting – sounds adventurous, gross, and astounding in its potential. Well penned!
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Amazing work! Especially the final stanza where you consider what will happen to your mortal remains: enlightened and uplifting!
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Thank you.
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Of course… in Sweden, we do go mushroom hunting … and once you learned a few edible ones each autumn walk through the forest is an adventure
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Nicely done, Maria! I love the description of chanterelles as ‘small orange ruffles hiding among the stones and birch’, and the internal rhyme of ‘each frill of a delicate gill. I too want to be a tree!
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That’s fascinating – I love your memories 9f mushroom hunting – your mum obviously knew her stuff. I like the ending – that sudden, single line. Lots of detail grounds this poem so well.
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So well-written and captivating. Loved these few lines:
“Then I read people are making mushroom sneakers.
Do I want to be stinky feet? That run comfortably and well.
I want to be a tree.”
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This is wonderfully eccentric! I enjoyed it.
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