Poet: John Beck

John Beck was born in Titusville, PA in 1938 and moved with his family (at age 3 1/2) to Sturgeon Bay, WI, where he resides today. He had a passing interest in poetry in school but focused on training for a profession as a physician. After a 2 1/2 year tour of active duty in the US Navy as a Flight Surgeon and Naval Parachutist he returned to Sturgeon Bay and practiced family medicine with his father until Parkinson’s disease forced his father’s retirement. Now semi-retired as physician electronic health record advisor with part time clinical practice, John has found time to do some writing. Through the Gather social network he has been experimenting with new poetry forms as well as writing some short prose. Read more of John’s poetry at: http://lapapa.gather.com/

 

FUNGI~Terza Rima

I walk the trails and wonder at the sight
Of multicolored fungi peeping through
Decaying leaves.  Those morsels deer delight
 
In nibbling.  I perhaps am tempted too
But caution rules and I just pass them by
And leave their spores and hyphae to renew
 
Mysterious potentials in the ground
Which through the seasons hidden dormant lie
Until ideal warmth and moisture’s found
 
So mushrooms can emerge and so belie
The death and disappearance of their source.
Yet what I see today must surely die.

Daily Response: “I walk the trails and wonder at the sight” opens John’s poem. Think of a time when you took a nature walk. Where we you, and what did you see?