Mycorrhizae
By Aster Starling
Strands connected underground,
the heartbeat of a breathing forest.
Gifts from one to another
handed through mycelium,
webbed and unending,
there is no plant there without roots;
and no roots without their presence.
They cannot grow without plants
They cannot drink from the sun like them
So they give the plants what the find in the soil
And have their kindness returned.
If on plant begins to struggle
The fungus gives sugar as a gift from another
And so the forest grows together
Like a community of one
Evergreen
To be an evergreen is not to be eternal.
It is to live fully
In the cold months
Snow caking outreached arms
Holding the weight of winter
Embracing its prickles,
with soft needles of your own
Old Ground
Trails lead on
To a place muffled from the roads
Creeks rolling with stories from glaciers.
Long ago you were here
Walking this soil with a body
Which long since joined it again
Remembering faded portraits
Painted by a different you.
It feels familiar again
Only for a moment
Of peaceful melancholy
Rain Shadow
We live in the shadow of a mountain
One so tall
The rain cannot pass
So it pours onto usStrands connected underground,
the heartbeat of a breathing forest.
Gifts from one to another
handed through mycelium,
webbed and unending,
there is no plant there without roots;
and no roots without their presence.
They cannot grow without plants
They cannot drink from the sun like them
So they give the plants what the find in the soil
And have their kindness returned.
If on plant begins to struggle
The fungus gives sugar as a gift from another
And so the forest grows together
Like a community of one
