Mushrooms

asakiyume made a post about mushrooms today, and it reminded me of one of my favorite poems: Sylvia Plath's "Mushrooms."

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

***

Speaking of poetry, the local library is having a Valentine's day poetry contest with a fifty dollar prize. I would like to enter, but I haven't written any poetry since I was sixteen - which, God help me, is seven years gone - and I've apparently forgotten how to do it.

So far all I've got is a rant about how violets are not, whatever the poem says, blue; they're obviously purple, it's right there in the name, and if your prospective beloved is trying to lie to you about colors then what else is he trying to hide?