Lichen
You licker of precambrian rock
I am your liker.
You are both plant and sister
To yeasts, moulds, rusts, mildews.
Hungry for green.
No stems, leaves, nor roots
In you are seen
And so
You married yourself to a plant,
Green plant wed to greenless you,
And together you chew, chew
Rock into earth,
Precambrian into postcambrian,
Helped, no doubt
By the sun and her daughter,
Water.
O determined soil-maker,
We all lie in the hammock
Of your ceaseless patient work.
James Reaney, 2005
“Lichen” is from James Reaney’s book Souwesto Home, available from Brick Books.
( ( ( 0 ) ) ) Listen to Jeff Culbert read “Lichen” here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G1QBRujoEjw
Xanthoparmelia sp. with dark-colored reproductive structures (disc-like apothecia) at center, surrounded by a pale coloured vegetative thallus.
Lichens are fungi that have discovered agriculture
– lichenologist Trevor Goward
James Reaney 