Mushroom Communiqué

Illustration: Leopold Trattinnick  (1764-1849)


I. 

 Music   and   mushrooms:

       two   words   next   to   one
another   in   many   dictionaries.
                 Where   did   he
  write   The   Three-Penny   Opera?
                  Now   he’s  
buried   below   the   grass   at   the
 foot   of   High   Tor.
           Once   the   season   changes
  from   summer   to   fall,
        given   sufficient   rain,
              or   just   the  
mysterious   dampness   that’s   in   the
 earth,                  mushrooms
  grow   there,
 carrying   on,                  I
   am   sure,                  his
   business   of   working   with  
sounds.
                    That   we
 have   no   ears   to   hear   the
  music   the   spores   shot   off
 from   basidia   make   obliges   us
 to   busy   ourselves   microphonically.


           --  John Cage


II.

Deep, deep in the murky shadows,
There where the slime mold creeps,
With joy the stout mycologist
His pallid harvest reaps.


           -- Song of the New York Mycological Society

Illustration: Jean Louis Émile Boudier (1828-1920)