Subgeneris

There’s a lot of stink about roots
These days, how they communicate,
How they deal with mycelia.

Is it all cooperation?
Is it bartering, is it song?
Language may anchor the forest,

But the tangle’s horizontal,
Like the whole skin of life on Earth.
It’s not really terribly deep.

You don’t have to run a backhoe
Or a drill to tunnel below
The endlessly talkative net.

Write as if prior to language,
Some teacher-poets say. So, paint,
Under the roots, in lightless caves,

Whatever you never wanted
To communicate, to express,
To alter others’ minds, to mean.