Sweet water roots

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From under the folding umbrella shade of a tree’s

midday full stop, what reveals itself to bright light

comes dressed in motifs. Of mud.

There are soldiers and mud, insects and mud,

then to the sticky and some to the liquid slip.

Some again to dust, dusting a dusky air for bats

owning the sonic flight path dart mirror

of daylight’s swallow and swift, chasing eights

back and forward across the hatch.

All pulls to where under the misty skin

a dark world forms sculptures to lift

from the shield of earth time. There,

the precious and protected sit in a soup

of sweet treats and warning signs, while muddy boots

and watery fields and roots have soaked. Soaking

through layers of ancestor, mycorrhizal mystery

networked like the salt marsh millions. Down,

through these sweet webs, fungal and root tongues

hold drunken or firm. Lush whisperings

in the delicate feathering patterns of water work.

Sweet growth in a grainy underwater hum and crunch.

A calcium rustle shells the root weave, turning

soft tunnel stretch-trenches that spread and head

towards the surface, fruiting spore songs. Gentling

there above, full leaf music glows. Drifts

an auburn tumble of greetings reaching towards

forms of phrase and chorus, shooting from below.