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Column 074

In the Mushroom Summer

Intro by Ted Kooser
08.30.2006

Of tak­ing long walks it has been said that a per­son can walk off any­thing. Here David Mason hikes a moun­tain in his home state, Col­orado, and steps away from an undis­closed per­son­al loss into anoth­er state, one of healing.

In the Mushroom Summer

Colorado turns Kyoto in a shower,
mist in the pines so thick the crows delight
(or seem to), winging in obscurity.
The ineffectual panic of a squirrel
who chattered at my passing gave me pause
to watch his Ponderosa come and go—
long needles scratching cloud. I’d summited
but knew it only by the wildflower meadow,
the muted harebells, paintbrush, gentian,
scattered among the locoweed and sage.
Today my grief abated like water soaking
underground, its scar a little path
of twigs and needles winding ahead of me
downhill to the next bend. Today I let
the rain soak through my shirt and was unharmed.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted by permission from “The Hudson Review,” Vol. LIX, No. 2 (Summer 2006). Copyright © 2006 by David Mason. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.