Red Mushrooms

Red mushrooms by the forest path,
Damp from last night's rain.
I'll head my way around and back,
And return that way again.

The Mushroom

A Meditation upon the Mushroom

What good is it? Why is it here? 

I looked around at magnificent ground,
Trees grow to the top of the bluff.
Centuries of stacked up leaves
Atop a mycelium's compact stuff.

The fungus key to the forested home
Without it the toils of nature will stop.
It devours dead trees, digests them to loam,
And returns to the soil as rot.

The creature here is a fibrous bloom,
Tucked deep beneath the ground.
It's the same mycelium that made these toadstools . . .
Sending filamentous hyphae around.

[A longer poem about mushrooms, and pilgrims. It takes place long ago. . . after the Crusades . . ]