WHO’S SHROOMIN WHO?
If I had the time,
because I do have
the interest,
I could spend hours
cataloging
the many unique mushrooms
I come across
on the modest acreage
of which I have
the honorof stewartship.
Each is a piece of public art,
erected very suddenly,
while no one was looking.
And just as quickly
little museum thieves
whisk them away.
I walk across
the same piece of property
every day
and
like the ocean,
it is never the same
two afternoons
in a row.
Lots of these fungal flowers,
if not mingling in little coffee klatches
of a handful,
are loners,
standing upright,
with an admirable defiance,
and too brief beauty.
This one,
reaching five inches
towards the sky,
would be picked for
the Mushroom Basketball Olympics,
if they had one;
and maybe they do.
Who knows
what goes on in Mushroomland
when we are not
paying attention?
The tinge of purple
and the delicate upturn
of petals
is not what I usually see
with the rest of the fun guys
who wear big hats.
Be kind to your muses
and they will be kind to you.
And talk to your mushrooms,
and sometimes
they will talk back;
maybe even sing.
Inspiration comes from
everywhere.
I steal it
like a mushroom thief.
Alex Shapiro 2007
4 comments:
A slightly different arrangement,
a different song.
The way you
parse
my phrases is
uncannily wonderful
and yes
you divine that I am steeped
in the rhythms of words
regardless
of my own intent
they follow my thoughts and
march on
to their internal percussionists.
Thank you for noticing
because until now
I had not noticed.
In a way, poetry is musical speech.
Yes Alex, your inner poet is rising, rising to the surface, creating the lyrics for music to come. Thanks for seeing the truth of your talent; it's all just a matter of perspective.
I had noticed the melody of your words, the poetic imagery, and the wordsmithing early on, but I had to have a presumptious morning to take your blank prose, and rearrange the way one's eye approached it, rearrange the way it sang to the page. And it feels good to have been right. So maybe, in the throes of your procrastination, when the notes will not come, perhaps the words will come first.
Yes, too, Doug, a different arrangement creates something new(er), a different song, a different arrangement. And yes, I could not agree more, real poetry, perhaps not all of mine, is definately musical speech; like the best musicals where the speaker bursts into song coherantly, logically, because it is the next step to convey both the thought and the emotion.
Glenn
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