hear trees shoot the breeze
by James Penha
take the forest floor, fungal
roots confabulate
“The Last of Us” television series has energized discussions and imaginings of mushroom networks, but I prefer to consider in this poem not monsters but the beneficent “wood-wide web” that forester Peter Wohlleben describes in “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World”. That book explores how trees communicate and form alliances via their roots and associated fungi.
I myself was first exposed to this idea not from Wohlleben nor from scientific treatises, but from Richard Powers’ novel “The Overstory”, itself inspired by Wohlleben and the complementary work of Suzanne Simard.
Further reading:
‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers, Norton Books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393356687
‘Finding the Mother Tree’ by Suzanne Simard, Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602589/finding-the-mother-tree-by-suzanne-simard/
‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ by Peter Wohlleben, Greystone Books: https://www.peterwohllebenbooks.com/the-hidden-life-of-trees
‘The German Forester Who Wants the World to Idolize Trees’, Robert Moor, The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-german-forester-who-wants-the-world-to-idolize-trees
‘The Real Zombie Fungus That Inspired HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’’, Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-real-zombie-fungus-that-inspired-hbos-the-last-of-us-180981514/
‘The Social Life of Forests’, Ferris Jabr, The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html
‘‘Mother Trees’ Are Intelligent: They Learn and Remember’, Richard Schiffman, Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mother-trees-are-intelligent-they-learn-and-remember/
‘We Asked a Mycologist About The Last of Us and It Got Weird’, Bria McNeal, Esquire: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42760795/last-of-us-fungus-cordyceps-mycologist/
Author bio:
Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha
Enjoyed James’ sciku? Check out more of his sciku here: ‘Quantumku‘, ‘DNAncient’, and ‘Air-Gen-Ku’.