Nature's Nonpareil - Forest Fungi Fete

Absolute splendor

Credit: All photos by author Cori Bren - I’ve never seen a purple fungus, a passionate prince among the forest frippery

Rain and wind heavy and heaving

Weighted, pounding trees’ branches leaving

The sky a flat, unforgiving, slate gray

We expected the rain to end yesterday

On the cusp of clearing, nature’s dark, damp, and wet

We flee to the forest to savor the fragrance

Of rot soon forgotten at the fungi fete

Perfect, velvety orange dome, this groom waits in his regalia

The paths are like sponges supple and full

Their waterlogged pathways hushing our steps

As we dash here and there - paparazzi to the fungi’s brilliant display

Not one, two, or three varieties; but a dozen or more pull

Us onward deeper into the gloom as thunder returns with an ominous roll

Is Mini in town? We’d not thought we’d snap her.

Ascertaining our time’s come to a premature end

We run full-out back the way that we came

Sky darkens, deepening it’s gloom but we’re supplicants

Thankful to witness this fete

Seeing princes, and queens, and peasants alike

We graciously exit their delicate site

Their pageantry we’d not seen as of yet

Until capturing their splendiferous fungi fete

My favorite, a queen, looking like the toast of the mallows

Ladies in waiting, flowery flibbertigibbets, simpering and shallow

Crowd of peasants, the lesser lichen abound

Like drunken patrons at party’s end, they fall to the ground