She (Who) Gathers Mushrooms
When the sun rose above
the Cascade peaks
she laced her hiking boots, retraced
her steps like Raven following rain clouds.
She knows the names of ink cap,
blue chanterelle, black morel.
The understory, the forest floor,
illuminates her path—
to perceive the natural world
through traditional ways of being,
elemental knowing: leaf detritus,
the forest lessons of ash leaves, white fir needles,
mouse-tail moss, lichens,
new territory of rhizomes.
She wishes the children in the shelter, in the cages
could taste the sweet licorice root,
touch yellow-green mosses,
place rings of bracken ferns
around small earth-brown hands.
She walks into this territory underground—
ancestral land, emergent layers, dense canopy,
enormous mushroom-shaped crowns.
Thousands of persons without homes now.
She knows they will be wandering,
seeking home for decades,
if they survive as she has survived so far.
Guessing the names of other plants,
her grandmother pointed out
the ones you could eat,
the ones to avoid.
Immigration officers skulking in the shadows,
others waiting to evict
the wild ones, tented beneath Douglas fir.
Her boots leave clear marks
in the places where the latest news
dampens her hopes as she remembers.
Light a candle of invocation.
Change consciousness.
Like a chalice of golden chanterelles,
may courage sustain us all.
By Gwendolyn Morgan found in Flight Feathers Poems pages 3-34.
Invitation: What does “home” mean to me right now?
Gwendolyn Morgan is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist who has served in interfaith spiritual care in medical centers for nearly two decades. She currently works as a hospice chaplain, often taking back roads to visit patients and families in the Portland, Oregon area. She served as Clark County Poet Laureate (2018–2020) in Washington State, and her third poetry collection, Before the Sun Rises, received a Nautilus Silver Award in Poetry. Her four collections—Crow Feathers, Red Ochre, Green Tea (2013), Snowy Owls, Egrets & Unexpected Graces (2016), Before the Sun Rises (2019), and Flight Feathers (2022)—have earned numerous honors, including Nautilus Gold and Silver Awards and the Wild Earth Poetry Prize. Morgan’s work reflects a deep commitment to equity, inclusion, and ecological awareness, rooted in her experience as part of a multicultural family living within a shared watershed. Learn more about her at the link below:
https://gwendolynmorganrose.com/
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April Courageous Citizen
Leah Penniman - “From the first day, when the scent of freshly harvested cilantro nestled into my finger creases and dirty sweat stung my eyes,” Co-Director and Farm Manager of Soul Fire Farm Leah Penniman writes in her 2018 book Farming While Black, “I was hooked on farming. Something profound and magical happened to me as I learned to plant, tend, and harvest, and later to prepare and serve that produce in Boston’s toughest neighborhoods.”
Her journey through nature juxtaposed with the current societal challenges we are facing offers the view, for me, of a parallel universe.
And yes to this -- "Light a candle of invocation. Change consciousness."
May we find homes for everyone. Healthcare for everyone. May we find nourishment all around us. Amen pm