Morels

Maybe, if everyone behaves themselves, If the snowpack is deep and thick around elm and maple, And the tourists didn't stay away for lack of snow. If the temperatures stay cold at night, and warm in the day, So the Sugarers stand a chance to break even. And if the river is especially good, And doesn't heave up pack ice, Doesn't burst its banks, And doesn't scour the topsoil from the lower fields. Then we'll go out past where we found the Fiddleheads popping up. We'll sidle past the poison ivy. We'll poke tenderly underneath the blackberry bushes. We'll feel the warmth on our backs and the old, dark coolness on our faces. And we'll look, eyes squinting, for the honeycomb pattern. Delicate like lace, golden and glowing. They would tell us that the winter was hard, cruel and unfair. But the spore survived. The intricate network courses to life. The promise was kept again.