Little Left-open Mercies*   

Hereabouts embodies some otherworldly energies, how else would you explain this? Most likely they left their little umbrellas open lanterns lit ponchos ready mycelial garb awaiting the rain (the middle-earth outerwear of mystical elsewheres) and yet nothing underfoot is unoriginal and secrets here belonging much longer most certainly than we, the unidentified mercies left unlisted and alone the presence of something other, but here. 

Wilder friends,

When our brilliant mycologist Kathleen Thompson can spend a few days with us, we habitually pause from chasing fungi and lichens and mosses and liverworts to read some poems and write some, make ephemeral art, or just wade the river to contemplate the barefoot mysteries. Some among us dance on the occasion of rain. You see, my friends, creative acts gather and throw the spores of wildness, draw us in and stretch the threads that web us all. Face to face with a slime mold or tree frog, a fox watching from a hollow, feathered chats and voices riding late summer breezes bring us to who we are where we are right now. And now. 

Love the little things,

Jack Phillips

*Prose poem by Jack Phillips. Photos by Troy Soderberg: Clitocybe nuda (top), Leucoagaricus rubrotinctus, Tremella mesenterica (bottom) in Harrison County, Iowa in September. Identified by Katie Thompson.