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NATURE'S ABSOLUTE MASTERY

When I awoke at around dawn this rainy misty morning to the singular cry of what was clearly a large bird, a cry I've never heard before-- a single, short harsh note repeated like a very slow metronome-- the bird apparently roosting on a branch in the garden, I finally roused myself to look out the window just when the cry began to fade as the bird took wing and disappeared into the mist, so I didn't learn what kind of bird it was.

But as I looked out, I glanced at the upper garden and was amazed to behold the stacked shiitake logs blooming with large shiitake, from which very logs I had just harvested so many mushrooms only a few days ago! Stirred by nature's fecundity, as I had breakfast I thought about whether I should harvest all the shiitake, or maybe let some go to spore (which they would quickly, given this rain), what size basket I should take out with me, where my garden raincoat was, should I use scissors or a knife... I gazed now and then out the window to check on the extent of the impending harvest, thought about maybe shiitake fettuccini for lunch...

At last after breakfast, all was prepared; I had the basket and garden shears, and in my boots and raincoat I trudged out through the pouring rain and walked up to the logs, upon which there was not one single shiitake. What had been ripely swelling mushrooms were merely rain-dampened patches of light tan-variegated bark, precisely proportioned, positioned and color-coded to resemble the shape, random location and color of shiitake to the distant shiitake-seeking eye. There's a lesson here, though I'm still not sure exactly what it is...

One thing though, I'd never before so personally perceived nature's absolute mastery at using the unwitting collaboration of its sapient members to mimic its fungal elements. This made me wonder about the mysterious bird that started it all, and then inevitably about the mysterious being who awakened to that strange call...