fairy ring mushrooms

fairy ring mushrooms

magically appear after

a late summer rain

Fairy ring mushrooms popped up overnight, conjured by the magic of rain. They emerge, not in a ring, but in a sinuous curve following the wood chip path to the house. The spores waited through the drought for this moment, perhaps stored away in the bark of the tree that died and got turned into firewood and wood chips for the walkway. The delicate full caps look like powdered breasts with brown nipples. But when the mushrooms first emerge, they look utterly phallic. In the rain, the fragile fungi only last the day, then begin to fray and tatter, finally falling over, revealing fluted bellies.