Walking, Late August, 2021

Stop Believing

...

This morning I witnessed a thatch of berry plants clustering thick on either side of the path I had been walking. Each plant arched out of the ground taller than me and framed a cathedral of vegetation whose ceiling was a piebald glow of the sky seeping through the treetops. The plants were crowned by festive fringes of small dusty flowers, reminding me of the feathered hats of Victorian women. Underneath drooped triangular fans of dark plump berries. After stopping to watch a couple of bees as they clumsily rejoiced in the yellow pollen, I plucked one of the berries. Rolling it in my palm for a few seconds, I decided to squeeze. It popped! Out gushed vivid magenta fluid that stained my fingers. I sniffed at the now exposed seedy pulp, but detected nothing.

Later on the walk I spotted a hand sized blueberry pancake-like wheel hovering low to the ground. I stooped beside it and lowered my face to the damp earth. The lively zing of fresh turf filled my nostirils, and I peeked beneath the mushroom's wheaty mottled disk to see a dense neon pinwheel of gills blooming across its underbelly. I cautiously stroked them to feel the rubbery folio. At the pinwheel's center, a beige stock joined the disk to the forest floor.

Simple reality oozes with sensuous emissions of things. There is no need to embellish.