(Published in Hencroft Hub – https://www.hencrofthub.com/issue-one-fungus}

I’m back in the copse where we found inkcaps, turkey tails, amethyst deceivers

where you showed me elf cups on a rotting branch, and earthballs

ballooning out between the leaves which kept falling and falling.

Where you knelt, damping your fists, inflating your lungs to capacity

with that dull air. I pointed out berries overhead arching from tree to tree,

ripe red holly, leafless white bryony wound round lichened trunks

but you wouldn’t budge, said there was

no time for looking up.  

         

I’ve returned alone to the track we walked

and have promised myself I won’t kneel even though I know

there are waxcaps and brittlegills, and the litter’s alive with decay

and detritivores. I know it’s beautiful, this constant recycling

but for now I can only cope with the source – a weak sun stretched through oak

and beech, horizontal rays finding paths between these ever-shedding trees

which look solid at a distance, even though they’re made

of endless breaking parts.