Red Mushrooms on a Forest Floor

I have no comfort for you, my son, but these words...

Red Mushrooms on a Forest Floor

Late summer. The katydids sing louder
than the seethe of the television, and I’m grateful
for their song. I walk out through the shuffle
of dry leaves, and over the stream that slowed
to a trickle this summer, past where the houses end.

Mushrooms glow upon the dusty forest floor, fiery
as the orange velvet ants that thrive in southern fields.
One of those ants, fuzzy-soft and bright as magic, stung me,
when I was four, right through the waxy-thick green magnolia
leaf I held it with. My hand blistered hot, and my mother applied
meat tenderizer to coax the sting out. Cow killers she called them.

Tonight, I have no comfort for you, my son, but these words:
May you blaze with the audacity of a red mushroom in twilight.
May the feeling of walking barefoot in a broken-bottle world
become vague memory, and when the world squeezes you,
as surely it will, do not despair, but burn, fiery and fierce,
lest it forget your sting.

Red Mushrooms on a Forest Floor watercolor paints by Tynley Baker.

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Matt Layne writes…

Tomorrow is the 26th Birthday of my one and only child, Isaac Charliemagne Griffin-Layne. For the record, the misspelled Charlemagne is a call-back to Isaac's great Pee-Paw, CL Griffin, on his mom's side. Isaac came out of the womb singing. In those early days of language learning, instead of crying, Isaac trilled like a French baby bird. It was so sweet and pretty and heartbreaking all at the same time. In fact, bird was the first word Isaac ever uttered. Music and poetry and mathematics all come naturally to Isaac, and I am regularly in awe of the musicality and nuance of the verse which flow forth from his pen.

I wrote Red Mushrooms on a Forest Floor as a reminder to Isaac, myself, and readers that though the world often seems overwhelmingly overwhelming, we as individuals can make a difference by remaining fierce and connected through our own mycelial networks. Isaac's in the midst of applying for graduate schools for an MFA program in creative writing, so cross your fingers and toes that he gets into a kick-ass one, and wish my fiery, fierce poet a happy happy Birthday, and may we all remember our sting.

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“Red Mushrooms on a Forest Floor” appears in Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022.

Miracle Strip, a poetry collection by Matt Layne, is a unique hybrid of the written and spoken word. Each piece of the collection has an end-stop embellishment QR code which, when scanned, transforms the reader into a listener. Layne has recorded each poem, often with the accompaniment of musician and poet, Ned Mudd. The first line of the book invites the reader to “tell me your story, and I will tell you mine,” in the campfire tradition. In Miracle Strip, the reader and poet embark on an experiential journey of memories and the ghosts who haunt us.

Miracle Strip by Matt Layne is in print! Get your copy today!

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Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. His debut multimedia poetry collection, Miracle Strip, had been awarded the 2025 Alabama Author Award for Poetry and was named the 2024 Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society. Order your copy today.

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