Blessing by Morel

A friend lives just over the horizon and west of the city. She told me of her rest in a woodland near her home, and the gift of morels in late Spring. Then, thoughts on the nature of creative process. She is an artist in color and light. As I collected wisdom, its seed incubated in a meandering mind. And here.

Slow down to know the gifts of life. Creative endeavor is like creation itself. Like the nature of a forest, the slow growth of a giant tree, shedding of leaf and limb through the seasons. Death and re-emergence of life. Deliberate changing of cover and color of foliage. The patience of flora, minute and massive, despite the skitter and fleet of fauna, the rush of storm and thought of mankind. There is always more time.

How long are the days of creation? Mountains rise and fall, as continents elbow for position. Earth turns. Sun gives its life as radiance, and Moon plies its pressure, exciting oceans and sky to tangle.

Go there. See it from the Starship. Know that we are not just our bodies. These are but the expression of earth and star and distant galaxy. Just as they too are ours. Slow to its pace, to the hour hand of the master clock. Stop. And tune to the tree, to the rock, to the mushroom. To the star. Know too, that all life, all substance and energy, is of the same Spirit. Because all is of one when you no longer look at life in parts. And when you look at life in parts, see the harmony in its working, in its movement, in its play. In rest. There is peace.

When Jane shared a mushroom with me, it was my first morel. The sharing of story and morsel inspired the poem below. Going to the place of verse's working helped me see the bigger picture.

Blessing by Morel


Sky white columns,
and canopy green.
Wooded floor in frond-soft tint.
Spring step on life-spent limb
and twig of feather, floral light.
I place cane chair in shade retreat.
Honor body, earth and soul.
Then call the roll: Just I and all
these other forms. They watch.
I rest.


And leaving day of great detail
unwinding all, but be and feel.
Then sense love song surreal
in murmur and sweet scent.
Drawn to the place of soul's content.
Hear hour hand in season's pace.
A different race—
Far and wide, and traveling band
by caravan and star-lit ship.
No end in sight and sound so quick.
But then a pop or snap or click.
I'm kicked back through portal of
immortal's bliss.


Slowly now, I reawake
to reacquaint myself to now.
And here. Somehow.
I breathe, and see anew.
Senses keen and sense of truth.
Color and light, in ambient hue.


Can trouble hide what isn't there?


Now circling my cane-back chair—
in silent toll, I count them—twelve!
Blest in soul and these morels.

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