Cow pie mushrooms was the other name
we called them up in Humboldt County
back in the 70s when friends of mine
were living in a redwood stump
and I would sit on tables
in the Epicurean and sing
for hours the songs I'd learned
from Baez
Belafonte and Burl Ives

Back then the mushrooms
were easy picking
though I a newcomer and city boy
needed to be shown
I can remember the first time
how quick the laughter rose
up in my throat
and how the young pine trees
seemed rooted in some underground
electric field that set
each separate needle sparking
from the current flowing up the trunk
and how the smell of those same needles
reached my nostrils like a basket
of exotic fruit and how
I knew that I was seeing
tasting smelling the world
for the first time