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From: Vol.07 N.01 – Plant Poetics

Plant Riddle #3

by Carolyn Masel

They told us all about the insect

who will come when the time is ripe;

every night I dream of him – his magic feet

on the anther, his tongue tickling the pistil.

But no insect came for me. I felt

a little off, a little too warm and dry,

oh, I was parched –

and I could tell I was out of shape

when suddenly my cap burst off

and spores flew out so fast

they made a vacuum and a tiny mushroom cloud.

Oh, they were higher and faster than mushrooms’,

and the wind carried them away like a stork.

Talk to me in Latin, baby! I wanted to say

to myself. But I could not speak.

The little ‘o’ in the capsule

was all that was left of my voice.

Published: March 2020
Carolyn Masel

is a Melbourne poet. Her first chapbook, A Book of Hours, imagines the voices of some of inhabitants of inner Melbourne (Ginninderra Press, 2017), and her first full-length collection, Moorings, includes poems about social issues as well as autobiographical subjects (Ginninderra Press, 2019).

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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