Category: contentment

The juncture of twig and branch,
scarred with lichen, is a gate
we might enter, singing.
~Jane Kenyon from “Things” from Collected Poems

Who’s this –alone with stone and sea?
It’s just the lowly Lichen We:
the alga I, the fungus me;
together, blooming quietly.
What do we share–we two together?
A brave indifference to the weather.
A slow but steady growing pace.
Resemblance to both mud and lace.
As we now, so we shall be
(if air clear and water free):
the proud but lowly Lichen We,
cemented for eternity.
~Joyce Sidman “The Lichen We” from Ubiquitous

All these years I overlooked them in the
racket of the rest, this
symbiotic splash of plant and fungus feeding
on rock, on sun, a little moisture, air —
tiny acid-factories dissolving
salt from living rocks and
eating them.

Here they are, blooming!
Trail rock, talus and scree, all dusted with it:
rust, ivory, brilliant yellow-green, and
cliffs like murals!

Huge panels streaked and patched, quietly
with shooting-stars and lupine at the base.
Closer, with the glass, a city of cups!

Clumps of mushrooms and where do the
plants begin? Why are they doing this?
In this big sky and all around me peaks &
the melting glaciers, why am I made to
kneel and peer at Tiny?
~Lew Welch, “Springtime in the Rockies,Lichen” from Ring of Bone: Collected Poems

Back then, what did I know?

Uptown and downtown.
Not north, not south, not you.

When I saw you, later, seaweed reefed in the air,
you were grey-green, incomprehensible, old.
What you clung to, hung from: old.
Trees looking half-dead, stones.

Marriage of fungi and algae,
chemists of air,
changers of nitrogen-unusable into nitrogen-usable.

Like those nameless ones
who kept painting, shaping, engraving,
unseen, unread, unremembered.
Not caring if they were no good, if they were past it.

Rock wools, water fans, earth scale, mouse ears, dust,
ash-of-the-woods.
Transformers unvalued, uncounted.
Cell by cell, word by word, making a world they could live in.
~Jane Hirshfield from “For the Lichens” from Come, Thief

But what is life to a lichen?
Yet its impulse to exist, to be,
is every bit as strong as ours —
arguably even stronger.
If I were told that I had to spend decades
being a furry growth on a rock in the woods,
I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t.
Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship,
endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence.
Life, in short, just wants to be.
~Bill Bryson from A Short History of Nearly Everything

I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest for nearly 70 years – this farm for 30 years. The grandeur of the snow-capped mountains to the north and east and the peaceful shore to the west overwhelms everything in between. Autumn after autumn, I’ve walked past these antique apple trees, but had never stopped to really look at the landscape growing on their bare shoulders and arms. There is a whole other ecosystem on each tree, a fairy land of earth bound dryland seaweed, luxuriant in the fall rains, colorful in the winter, hidden behind leaves and fruit in the hot summer. I had never really noticed the varied color and texture all around me.

This is the world of lichen, a mixed up symbiotic cross between algae and fungus, opportunistic enough to thrive on rock faces, but simply ecstatic on absorbent bark.

It hasn’t bothered them not to be noticed as they are busy minding their own business. As poet John McCullough writes in his poem “Lichen”:

It is merely
a question of continuous
adjustment, of improvising a life.

When I’m far from friends
or the easing of a wind
against my back, I think of lichen—
never and always true to its essence,
never and always at home.

Instead of lifting my eyes to the hills and the bay for a visual feast, I need only open the back gate to gaze on this landscape found on the ancient branches in my own back yard.

It’s a rich life of improvisation indeed.