Poem-a-Day

Crinkly-thin, the perfect marriage of algae and fungi, 
furbelowed and curled.


                                               venerable ancestors: strange as vellum, 
                                               an onion poultice, leather jerkin

                                                
Johann Dillen’s portraits of 1741: 
the ‘Strange Charactered Lichen, Black Dotted Wrinkled Lichen,
Leprous Black Nobb’d Lichen,
Crawfish Eye-like Lichen.’

                                                the youngest occupy a wicker couch, 
                                                eavesdrop on the aunties’ tales, wonder 
                                                why so aged-looking, their skin?

‘Wanderflechten’—those who traveled
on deer’s hooves, birds’ feet, hot air balloon baskets over arid land.


                                                travel’s allure, the turquoise ring, scarab bracelet

                                                
Those who embraced the seductions of moths’ wings, 
gave their bodies to the hungers  
of the ‘Brussels Lace Moths, Beautiful Hook-Tips, the Dingy Footman.’

                                                when can we stay out past dawn?

                                                
Lichens who gave sustenance, grew thin,
flailed against famine, 
lichen packed in the bodies of mummies.

                                                these have an aura, a blue-mauve cloud
                                                we can’t imagine the ribs’ furrows

                                                
Erik Acharius, 1808, the “father of lichenology,”  
fastens samples onto herbarium sheets,
lichens’ filaments and flakes suspended.

                                               nice—but not our father, who is spores and fragments

A thin cord anchors lichens to rock,
small bits chip off, wear of paw pad and fur,
take hold elsewhere.

                                               we hear the wind caressing bark

                                                
Lichens swept up by grazing reindeer,
hot breath devouring, rub of meaty tongues,
meat toxic to herders— 
radioactive fallout the lichens never meant to harbor.

                                               ghostly stalks of trees, an ashy forest 
                                               we can barely look

A single spruce hosts a rare green and red-lobed lichen.

                                                the odd one out, the one no one ever set eyes on

Lichens in the armpits of marble statues
differentiated from lichens on the thighs, 
eaten by snails on moonless nights.

                                               moonglow, 
                                               something we don’t know here, no one’s talking

                                                
A hummingbird’s nest, its outer layer  
shingled gray-green with lichen flakes, a point of pride, see—

                                               how beautiful they were, and useful.