I've been walking the same piece of ground for thirty years. It's all named; I didn't set out to name anything but stories pile up and names get stuck on the landscape whether I like them or not. Puffball Hill is one like that. Puffball just isn't bold enough to describe the transformation of Spider Cone Hill (yes, I named it) to upland scrub meadow.
Puffball Hill
This hill is mine;
I saw it first.
Wooded, a tall cone
like sugar used to be.
Hemlock draped.
And trapeze spiders
had slung white hammocks
all down the deep orange
needle frosted
slopes.
It's a hill in name, now,
scraped and carted
away, tons of ground
granite and orange dirt.
Puffball Hill
for the white mushrooms
ballooned across dead land
in a comet's tail slash of
quartz dusted
orbs.
Puffball Hill
This hill is mine;
I saw it first.
Wooded, a tall cone
like sugar used to be.
Hemlock draped.
And trapeze spiders
had slung white hammocks
all down the deep orange
needle frosted
slopes.
It's a hill in name, now,
scraped and carted
away, tons of ground
granite and orange dirt.
Puffball Hill
for the white mushrooms
ballooned across dead land
in a comet's tail slash of
quartz dusted
orbs.
