The Toadstools

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The Toadstools

In a dark and twisted forest, beneath leaf-mold soil
a tiny mushroom curls around a pleasant damp.
Stretching up, leaning to one side, it dons a lacy cap,
Then, secretly, it sends out tiny threads of hope.

Scampers near a little girl, reaching out her hand.
“No, Cassandra, never touch a speckled fungi,”
yells a witch mother as she leads her child away.
Our toadstool, thick with spores, takes no heed.

In that dark and twisted forest, growth takes form:
a band of mushrooms soon curls around the damp.
Gathering in a circle, their bodies white as fog,
they prepare to dance as crisp moonlight flows.

Owls are hooting; rabbits sniff and stop; foxes yip.
Both prey and hunter prowl as the silent fungi bulge.
Round and round they expand and swell, preparing
while moonlight dips, and shadows fill the clammy night.

Rising higher, hyphae loop and coil around each other.
As gills suck water, the toadstools toss their powders.
The father/mother scoots aside, making room for youth
as all enlarge and flare underneath that moon bright sky.

Then the forest stills. Darkness creeps across the light.
The mushrooms now exhausted from their lively dance,
take off their frilly little caps and slowly fade away,
But beneath the soil, new threads connect and wait.

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