Mushrooms
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
-Sylvia Plath
Cool poem. Symbolism. Revolutionary.
ReplyDeleteMushrooms as a symbol for opportunity. There in strength and numbers just waiting for the chance to pop up.
The narrator uses the first person plural point of view. The reader is one of the mushrooms. One of the waiters. Waiting to rise up with the next cranny or crack.
Is that American? So many waiting to rise up. Trump sparked this specie of mushroom, maybe someone else will come to spark a more compassionate and caring group of mushrooms.
Wow. I don't know if I have ever seen as much movement in a poem...after watching the timelapses of growing mushrooms this poem gives such a strong visual- and makes you analyze how growth occurs in your own body...or what kind of mushroom we, too, would be.
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