One Morel

 

 

One morel thrust from a patch

of processed mulch on Grove Street.

What mushroom thinking fruited

beside this busy sidewalk where

the post office crosswalk tempts

pedestrians to risk their lives?

 

We’ve just collected our mail,

a trash of advertisements. You note

the mushroom’s grave immodesty

and demand that I photograph it

before some greedy dog eats it

with a clumsy tongue-dangling smile.

 

In the cloudy light its colors

perfect themselves. The angle

of its attack looks slightly awry,

but its motive seems clear enough.

We’ll email the photo to friends

who appreciate mushroom-thoughts

 

in autumn, when so much nature

seems in retreat. We’ve never

seen a morel downtown where

lawyers and realtors conspire

to bare the local landscapes

and build shabby houses for gain.

 

Maybe the planted river birch

nearby will shed enough leaves

to safely conceal this fungus

until it has finished spreading

spores unlikely to flourish

in this busy little downtown.

 

You hope the mushroom’s aware

that we wish it well. At least

we’ve captured its portrait, posed

in thick but flattering light,

looking as we hope we would look

deep in the grip of reason.

 

Origami Attack

 You trimmed your shop window

with a thousand origami cranes

folded in blue, red, and yellow.

You expect this flock to suggest

that peace might break out sooner

than later, the flickering wars

on three continents snuffing

and their ashes blowing away.

 

I try a photo but reflections

of the bank across the street

and passing cars and pickups

muddle the crisp flight of birds.

The bank looks officious today,

responding to your frankly

socialist vision with a sneer

of brick and peeling wood trim.

 

The bustling vehicles ignore

your display because running

the stop sign requires focus.

Once I counted for a few minutes

the drivers who stopped and those

who blasted right through without

owning the right of way: five

scofflaws for each one that stopped.

 

You think your floodlit aviary

can discipline the human race?

The cranes beat against the tide

of indifference, their colors blazing,

but their living figures droop

with a thousand years of exhaustion

imported from Japan before

atomic warfare began.

 

Something After Sjöberg

 

 

What to make of a landscape

that won’t maintain a pose for me?

 

Shattered lines, effaced shadows,

archaeology of sky-creatures

 

burrowing head-down into earth

gangrenous with watercolors

 

the artist deploys in squalls.

As if a nebula descended

 

to rebuke our wayward planet.

Accounts of Bertil Sjöberg

 

and the mania behind this scene

underscore his grasp of shards.

 

Such an honest disconnection

can’t go unremarked. Therefore

 

I respond with tinsel and scrap

to accompany and critique

 

his gaseous sharp-edged figures.

If I look over my shoulder,

 

they form, deflate, and reform

without his or anyone’s consent.

 

 

Rosy Maple Moth

 

 

d. rubicunda

 

A creamy pastel moth adheres

to the lip of a plate glass window.

When I prod it, folded wings

flourish but refuse to flap.

Easy prey for a robin,

 

but robins are scarce this year,

climate bubbling like witches’ brew.

To photograph and catalogue

this ornament for future reference

seems crass. You think it’s dying,

 

one of those mouthless creatures

that lays its eggs and then starves.

The respectful thing is to leave it

to mull the stark utility

of its ten days of adult life.

 

All last summer as caterpillar

it fed on specific foliage.

Then a winter tightly mummified.

Then spring and a sudden mating—

then eggs, the futureless future.

 

You peer at its minute throbbing

and wonder aloud that it chose

this exposed place to meditate.

I snap a photo and withdraw,

having desecrated its little space.

 

You want to name the creature

the way Adam named all creatures

with his initial attempt at speech,

although he lacked the Latin

science prefers to apply.

 

We’ll look it up in The Moth Book,

and when we find and pronounce

the proper words we can relax,

having done our human duty

for it if not for ourselves.