Song of the Fungi
by Alex R Oliver

I am oozing like an undine
beneath your foundations.

Under your feet, I am squelching, pulsing, spreading,
nosing through the caverns where the worms burrow,
pushing among the questing roots,
sipping their sugars.

Oh, I am linking them up, 
the invisible squigglers and the great oaks, 
the messages passed from taste to taste within the sheltering soil.

Here through the filaments I can sniff sunshine,
sample the slow kinaesthetic stretch as leaves turn toward the light.

I am connecting them up, my aerials, 
tuning into the minds of the trees as they tune into me,
as the year warms and the rain drips and the leaves rot and then…

Oh, I am blossoming, I am triumphing. I am trumpets and gills and jaunty hats.
I am ears on the trees, balls in the grass.
I am bleeding black ink from my white wig as I thrust crooked fingers from the loam.

Here I am feeding you, my soft flesh becoming your soft flesh.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
I’m letting you see God.

Scuttling animals, I have always known how to co-exist — 
I am farming my trees. 
I am erupting from the brains of ants, their little bodies become my body.
My insect armies are high on me, defending me, sharp with
bliss, bliss as they do my bidding.

So no, mankind, I do not fear you.

Feed me plastic and watch me devour.
Lace me through concrete and let me build.
Link me to your computers and listen to me sing.

The meat and ooze and electricity of our communion
as we join our world wide webs,
will bring you into the flow of the earth.
What thoughts we will have together
if you will only hear.