Mushroom Harvest

by Melissa Allen

Wow. You people are amazing. I say “Mushroom haiku,” you say “How many?” A lot, that’s how many. My mushroom craving has now been completely satisfied. I’m not gonna go on a whole lot more than that because … wow. You speak for yourself, I think. Thank you.

(Just a quick link for those of you who like your mushrooms with more scholarship: The mushroom kigo page from Gabi Greve’s World Kigo Database)

– Terri L. French,  The Mulling Muse, first published Contemporary Haibun, Volume 12

6 AM moon –
out of the still dark grasses
one white mushroom

— sanjuktaa

Unlike the mushroom
A snail moves to the shadows
In a forest glade

— P. Allen

(Photo: Melissa Allen)

fog rising –
mushrooms push aside
a bed of pine needles

(The Heron’s Nest VI:11, 2004)

– Curtis Dunlap, The Tobacco Road Poet

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

a tree falls
only the wood ear
listens

– Angie Werren, feathers

dry season
the earth not breaking
for the mushroom

– Mike Montreuil

(Photo: Jay Otto)

boiling herbs—
the mushrooms we gathered
darkening

warm cabbage
mushrooms—only wind
at the door

– Penny Harter, Penny Harter homepage,  A Poet’s Alphabestiary, Etc.

sudden storm
the mushrooms’ umbrellas
overflowing on the grill

— Tzetzka Ilieva

moonshine
a fairy circle lights
the pine forest

— Margaret Dornaus, Haiku-Doodle

fairy rings
wishing for the rain
to stop

— Christina Nguyen, A wish for the sky…

(Photo: Jay Otto)

Sticking on the mushroom,
The leaf
Of some unknown tree.

— Basho, translated by R.H. Blyth

(Now that you have read this, it is very important that you watch this YouTube video of John Cage discussing this haiku.)

Mushroom-hunting;
Raising my head,–
The moon over the peak.

— Buson, translated by R.H. Blyth

one by one
ignored by people…
mushrooms

– Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

My voice
Becomes the wind;
Mushroom-hunting.

— Shiki, translated by R.H. Blyth

pine mushrooms
live a thousand years
in one autumn

— Den Sutejo (1633-1698), translated by Makoto Ueda

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

mushroom garden-
in the damp,dark corner
full moon

magic mushrooms—
under the duvet I find
stars

dark cloud–
from the primordium
a billowing mushroom

— Stella Pierides, Stella Pierides

(Photo: Jay Otto)

a million puffball spores
dance across my map

– Norman Darlington
First published in Albatross (2007) as a verse of the Triparshva renku ‘A Bowl of Oranges’

garden in shade and fog
mushrooms grow
where something dies damp

— Jim (Sully) Sullivan, haiku and commentary and tales

to a mushroom:
wish i were
a toad

overnight rain–
and your head expands
into a mushroom

— Alegria Imperial, jornales

– Terri L. and Raymond French, The Mulling Muse, first published in Haiga Online Family Haiga Challenge, issue 11-2

asphalt and concrete
but I know a place near here
that smells like mushrooms

— @jmrowland

in this heat
hunting for mushrooms
with help

— Steve Mitchell, Heed Not Steve

high noon -
seeking shelter under the mushroom
its shadow

— Kat Creighton

 

(Photo: Jay Otto)

sunrise service;
blue meanies
at the potluck

– Johnny Baranski

Fearless mushroom
uppercuts
snarling hyena.

— Robert Mullen, Golden Giraffes Riding Scarlet Flamingos Through the Desert of Forever

roadside stand
the chanterelle seller’s
orange crocs

— Polona Oblak, Crows and Daisies

(Photo: Jay Otto)

The following three haiku are from Penny Harter’s chapbook The Monkey’s Face, published by From Here Press in 1987.

just missing
the mushrooms
among stones

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “After the Hike”

counting mushrooms
in my basket—
numb fingers

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “Snow Finished”

under the mushrooms
the bones of
a field mouse

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “Home Village”

Penny Harter homepage,  A Poet’s Alphabestiary, Etc.

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

winter cemetery:
careful to tread between
the headstones
& these small clusters
of white mushrooms

— Kirsten Cliff, Swimming in Lines of Haiku

in the shadows
the child stomping mushrooms
smiles

– Penny Harter, revised version of a haiku from The Monkey’s Face (cited above)

crushing the year’s
first mushroom…
the laughing child

– Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

A word of explanation here: Penny wrote (or rewrote) her haiku above as a kind of experiment in response to my mushroom challenge — the original featured a child “squashing insects” rather than “stomping mushrooms.” She had no knowledge of the Issa haiku until I discovered it shortly after receiving her haiku and showed it to her. As Penny says, “It is both a fun coincidence—and a bit eerie, but then I’m used to eerie coincidences.”

(Photo: Jay Otto)

After the rain
they come out
parasol shrooms.

A circle of toadstools-
what’s left to do
but dance?

Eating his lunch
on a tombstone
mushroom hunter.

No mushrooms there
the hunter gives the log
another good kick.

– Alexis Rotella, Alexis Rotella’s Blog

(Photo: Melissa Allen. Artwork: Kimberly Sherrod.)

first mushrooms
the children steal
each other’s hats

after crashing into the rocks strange and beautiful mushrooms

mushrooms the flesh of rain

– Melissa Allen

(Photo: Jay Otto)

mushrooms
the door
ajar

– Terry O’Connor