“Looking for Mushrooms at Sunrise” by W.S. Merwin

Published in: 

The Lice, 1967

When it is not yet day
I am walking on centuries of dead chestnut leaves
In a place without grief
Though the oriole
Out of another life warns me
That I am awake

In the dark while the rain fell
The gold chanterelles pushed through a sleep that was not mine
Waking me
So that I came up the mountain to find them

Where they appear it seems I have been before
I recognize their haunts as though remembering
Another life

Where else am I walking even now
Looking for me

The Merwin Conservancy's logo; image displays a palm frond oriented vertically