Looking for all the world like some creature’s innards,
there are mushrooms wet with last night’s rain at my front door.
Tomorrow they will be on the stone slab that passes
for my welcome mat. They have crawled there alone.
Their movement is like that of a slug across salt flats.
In such expanses we taste the quick, bitter herb of earth
which is not the earth’s, and is not an herb,
but is us.
“THERE’S NO THROUGH TRAIL” —HAN-SHAN, TRANSLATED BY GARY SNYDER
After a Theme from Tranströmer
by Gary Leising
Issue: Spring/Summer 2020
About Gary Leising
Gary Leising is the author of the book, The Alp at the End of My Street, from Brick Road Poetry Press (2014). He has also published three poetry chapbooks: The Girl with the JAKE Tattoo (Two of Cups Press, 2015), Temple of Bones (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Fastened to a Dying Animal (Pudding House, 2010) He lives in Clinton, New York, with his wife and two sons, where he teaches creative writing and poetry as a professor of English.
Cold Mountain Review is published once a year in the Department of English at Appalachian State University. Support from Appalachian’s Office of Academic Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences enables CMR’s learning and publications program. The views and opinions expressed in CMR do not necessarily reflect those of university trustees, administration, faculty, students, or staff.