As Mushrooms Grow

As Mushrooms Grow

In the calm of morning mist
as sunlight begins to wake,
aspen take a startled breath
quivering at Fall's arrival.

Breaking fever in cooler air,
rain-washed leaves descend.
Withering on the forest floor--
the golden wounds of Autumn.

And thriving in adversity,
amidst a shelter of decay,
mushrooms with their spongy caps
peek through the shadowed mire.

While yonder in the eastern sky,
apart from nature's solitude,
man's anger spikes a blinding flash
as silence splits like thunderclap.

A mushroom climbs from man-made muck,
a rising beauty -- cloud of death.
And in the path of hellfire force,
trees bend and rise as skeletons.

Senselessness in darkened skies
sheds on Earth, its wretched tears,
to drizzle from death's bony branches
on festered wounds of war.