NPM: Mushrooms!!

WHAT? YOU DON'T LIKE MUSHROOMS? people keep asking me. BUT PAT! BUT PATRICK! THEY DON'T TASTE LIKE ANYTHING! YOU BARELY NOTICE THEM AND THEY HAVE SO MANY IMPORTANT HEALTHFUL VITAMINS. HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE MUSHROOMS?!?

I don't like mushrooms. I don't trust mushrooms. Perhaps this poem by Sylvia Plath will elucidate some of my misgivings about our mycoloid brothers and sisters. (I really dig the piece's rhythm, and I never noticed it until today.)

Mushrooms
Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)

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. 

By Mike Puncekar

ALSO! I feel I should remind y'all about the FROG GAME. In short: write your own version of Basho's frog haiku, have fun, take a chance at winning a one-pound bag of genuine organic Quaker granola. (I will clarify that I am not talking about Quaker brand granola, but granola made by Quakers.)

An amendment to the rules: instead of leaving your piece as a comment, you can also email it to me at beechleavesold(at)gmail.com.

We had mushrooms for dinner tonight at the Quaker center, so I am famished. The only thing that will sate my appetite is WORDS ABOUT FROGS.