American Life in Poetry: Column 102

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006 

Those of us who have hunted morel mushrooms
in the early spring have hunted indeed! The
morel is among nature's most elusive species.
Here  Jane Whitledge of Minnesota captures the
morel's mysterious ways.

Morel Mushrooms

Softly they come
thumbing up from
firm ground

protruding unharmed.
Easily crumbled
and yet

how they shouldered
the leaf and mold
aside, rising

unperturbed,
breathing obscurely,
still as stone.

By the slumping log,
by the dappled aspen,
they grow alone.

A dumb eloquence
seems their trade.
Like hooded monks

in a sacred wood
they say:
Tomorrow we are gone.

Reprinted from "Wilderness Magazine," Spring, 
1993, by permission of the author. Copyright (c)  
1993 by Jane Whitledge. This weekly column is 
supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library  
of Congress, and the Department of English at the  
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does 
not accept unsolicited poetry.
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