Something to Remember

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

There are ants in South America,

and parts of Texas and Louisiana,

that cultivate mushrooms.

 

They forage, cut, shave, and compost leaves;

they knead and heap the mushroom beds,

sowing the spores with meticulous care;

 

they fertilize it all with their own tiny,

ant shits. The mushrooms (rhozites gongylophia),

would never exist if it wasn’t for their diligence.

 

They carry the sails of their leaves across

the sea of undergrowth, shuttling spores in little

caravans; they communicate with substrate-born

 

vibrations, and they even mate in the air. And,

when the queen leaves the colony in search

of fresh soil, the first source of nutrients

 

for the new garden is her own wings,

which she tears off and lays there, like

iridescent blessings to keep the future alive.