This is a wholly inadequate little poem I was moved to write one day after witnessing, what seemed to me, nothing short of a miracle.

One day,

the termite hill was bare

The next,

covered with tiny mushrooms

Thousands of them,

bright,

fragile,

exuberant.

My heart sang.

Picture taken at Kasanka, in Zambia, after a rainy night. Unfortunately, I don’t have a ‘before’ photo, but I promise you, there was nothing to indicate that anything astonishing was about to happen.

© Jessica Groenendijk