When you look for chanterelles near trout streams,
Be sure you only pick the ones whose orange
Matches the orange by the white and black seams
Of a brook trout’s fins. What other color is born
From such combinations of light and shadow?
When you sauté the darkness from a nook
Of pine forest then toss in the crystal of a meadow’s
Deep undercut, don’t even look
At the garlic, much less the salt and pepper.
While light comes boiling up from a dark pool
Where your fly settles in like a fall grasshopper,
chanterelles push needles aside in the cool
Of the last rain before the first hard frost.
Add anything more and the flavor gets lost.