The Mushroom Gatherers.

• Author: Komunyakaa, Yusef
• Position: Poem

The Mushroom Gatherers The hard work of love sealed in language has stolen me far from home, from the fields, & I see morning mist rising where they borrow ghosts to get even with each other, harvesting vegetable fruit close as we can get to dirt. I glimpse shadows smudged in trees lining the highway where night & day commingle, or as a season moves slow this hour, saying, Bad things happened here. At first, the figures seem to be staring into earth, like migrants who work Florida & California, unearthing what we live to eat. We know the men from women by the colors they wear, sweat ringing their lives in gray shade, & our bus makes the mushroom gatherers with pails & canvas bags blur among the trees as if shutters are opening & closing, as the mind runs to keep...