Home ⇒ 📌Mary Oliver ⇒ Mushrooms
Mushrooms
Mushrooms
Rain, and then
The cool pursed
Lips of the wind
Draw them
Out of the ground –
Red and yellow skulls
Pummeling upward
Through leaves,
Through grasses,
Through sand; astonishing
In their suddenness,
Their quietude,
Their wetness, they appear
On fall mornings, some
Balancing in the earth
On one hoof
Packed with poison,
Others billowing
Chunkily, and delicious –
Those who know
Walk out to gather, choosing
The benign from flocks
Of glitterers, sorcerers,
Russulas,
Panther caps,
Shark-white death angels
In their town veils
Looking innocent as sugar
But full of paralysis:
To eat
Is to stagger down
Fast as mushrooms themselves
When they are done being perfect
And overnight
Slide back under the shining
Fields of rain.
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