Mushrooms

Overnight, very whitely, discreetly,very quietly
Our toes, our noses take hold on the loam,

Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us, stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding, even the paving.

Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless, perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies, shoulder through holes.

We diet on water, on crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking little or nothing.

So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are tables,

we are meek, we are edible,
Nudgers and shovers, in spite of ourselves.

Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

~Sylvia Plath