Flora Domesticus

Spring lingers this year. Today the sky is clouded and, like many days, it's felt like I live by the sea. The plants are happy. Here are a few happy plants from the garden and our half-made bathroom. The drooping flower cluster is from a succulent my daughter planted. It has been working on this one stalk of flowers for about a month or so. Patience yields rewards here. While, the other lovely example of fungus sprung up over night from a leaky pipe. In this case the gratification might seem instant, but we have been cultivating this mushroom habitat in the bathroom for years. Careful and enduring neglect finally paid off with this fleeting flora. It was gone by the next morning. Nothing but its black spray of spores on the floor to remind us of its presence.

They reminded me of one of my favorite Sylvia Plath poems, called Mushrooms:

Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us! We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible, Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door.