Hunting for Morels

Hunting for Morels ? Wet Kentucky early Aprils on hillsides facing north search young sassafras stands for leather-brown morels. Pocked gnome's hats, they hide under new-fallen beech leaves, poke above leaf meal, fingered by bronze oak lobes and sassafras mittens. Tilt the head sideways, squint against sunlight filtered through bare limbs. Soften your focus, gaze half-dreaming through drowsy eyelids, inhaling moist, earthy air. With gathering basket, mark your first find. II Spiral out with eyes then feet, glancing back to rediscover your morel blending with nuances of brown. Reconfigure footsteps into squares. Practice patience. 82 Hints of green and white— bloodroot, hepática, twinleaf, squirrel-corn— foreshadow the hunt's end. Ill Then turn your feet to narrow valleys for late morels. Blonde honeycombs, some the size of a man's fist, they shelter under paper-thin paw-paw tents, flood-debris, emerge under may-apple's emerald umbrellas, beside infant ivy's reddish-green shine. Abandon hope when mouse-ear chickweed scatters its bright stars on forest floors. Taste instead its crisp green promise. —Barbara Wade 83 ...