I love looking for mushrooms. Like a magical treasure hunt, the search for boletes, chanterelles or morels, is even more exciting than digging potatoes, because one never knows if the wicked wood will share its secrets.
So when I had to write a ghazal last year for a poetry course, I chose to encapsulate my love and longing into an ode to one of my favourite, fleeting pass times. This ancient Arabic form is written in couplets that end in a repeating refrain. The poet's name is often included in the last lines. It's not morel season right now, but you get the idea.
The Fungiphile
Into the gloom and green of the wicked wood
I go, seeking — but you are not there again.
Past snide fir and pines — burnt compartments of bark
masking secrets I long to locate again.
A scent, a dark tunnel, away from the sun —
ash-kissed plumes of moss conceal you again.
A whispering creek, shadow sobs before door
slams — voices, dogs, rival hunters compete again.
They aim inward, as I peer out from the edge
of my down hood. No time to give up again.
They are just Sunday walkers but I am a thief.
— Morchella! My downcast eyes disarmed again.
My knife debates nothing. Stabbed out of black soil
honeycomb, you rise into my hands again.
Heather-green suit, badge, halts my car at the gate,
but too late. Butter seeks elf-cap — all mine again.
That's a beautiful poem! I always think of you as a nonfiction writer or an essayist. But you are also a poet! Remarkable.
I can identify two kinds of mushrooms: white ones and brown ones. But they first have to be in the store.
Lovely Ghazal - I love fungi and moss and lichen. They are magic in all forests <3