Fungi
When in an ancient Australian forest,
don’t look up,
look down instead.
Beneath your feet, below the veins, laid out in secret–
red, purple,
moss-green mushrooms.
Hiding, life giving-life taking,
small and pulsating, propagating,
magi-lyrical, parasitical,
scavenger, scavenged–
secretive fungi!
Mycelium
As you read through these lines,
sleep, or go about your work–
A shimmer of life, mysteriously lies awake–
watching, moving, changing.
An anarchic filigree of Mycelium–
five million!
slowly they protrude,
explore,
and eat through the dead.
And then, in irregular spurts,
bring to life, the mysterious.
Wood, rock and soil, it changes–
gives life, kills, nourishes,
survives and cradles,
thousands of years of the dead
into resurrection,
fertility and decomposition.
Fungi!
(* A mycelium is a network of fungal threads or hyphae.)
Bhadra
The black billed Ibis stands in meditation
all morning–
First the right leg, then the left.
By afternoon the eyes close,
The jungle sleeps,
only the soft laps of Bhadra whisper
When you move a tired leg,
a twig snaps,
dry leaves mulch in anticipation of fire-
five miles away a Langur shifts trees,
the little one follows-
The peacock on the rock looks up,
spreads the awkward tail, startled.
A hesitant dance
and a sudden flight,
from the safety of a branch high above,
he calls, in anticipation
of unknown smells.
Everything here is Dry, Brown, Camouflage–
only fear is real.
A Blue flash,
a Kingfisher.
The Ibis opens an eye,
and a sudden swish–
The fish become easy,
the Ibis apparently asleep–
They play around the webbed feet–
A sudden dark swoop,
and a fish now dead.
Evening steals across the land,
stealthily–
a mango falls, and then another-
all night long they deliberate
on mushiness.
Monsoon arrives here suddenly,
like a blessing long overdue.
heat and panic dissipate,
Bhadra falls still again.
