High in the Smoky Mountains,
in a forest thicket of fir and spruce
saturated with rainwater, often shrouded
in fog, fallen timbers lie askew
in decay, transitioning back to the land,
generating fertile gardens for assorted fungi.
A village of small, bright orange mushrooms
grows in clumps on the shelf of a grooved log,
covered with a farm of bright moss,
green as the grass on Andrew’s Bald.
Their roundish, slightly serrated,
orange bowls, with white rims,
rest atop slim, cylindrical,
beige-colored pedestals.
They look like two-toned, shallow chalices
lifting their offerings skyward, maybe
gifts of water for pine warblers to drink
washing down a meal of insects.
Or late in the day they could be
golden goblets for gnomes
to sip their fungi-flavored, forest wine
at a nighttime green-world concert.
-Wesley Sims
Wesley Sims has published three chapbooks of poetry: When Night Comes, 2013; Taste of Change, 2019; and A Pocketful of Little Poems, 2020. His work has appeared in Artemis Journal, Connecticut Review, G.W. Review, Liquid Imagination, Plum Tree Tavern, Novelty Magazine, Poem, Poetry Quarterly, Bewildering Stories, and others. https://wesleysims884296882.wordpress.com/poetry-of-wesley-sims/