The Mycelium
_—For Jahman Anikulapo—_
It is a curious biological strategy,
to exist primarily as a set of subterranean connections
while the rest of the forest is busy
auditioning for the sunlight.
Most organisms want to be the flower,
the loud, colourful thing that everyone
photographs for their digital status,
but there is a certain, dry satisfaction
in being the mycelium.
One observes the specimen on his birthday,
not as a soaring mahogany,
but as the quiet, fibrous intelligence
running beneath the National Theatre
and the Lagos Book & Art Festival.
He is the one making sure the nutrients
travel from the old, stubborn roots
to the young, hungry branches,
all while maintaining the facial expression
of a man waiting for a bus that is
predictably, and somewhat amusingly, late.
There is a restraint in this kind of power.
It’s the surgical equivalent of
editing a thousand-page manuscript
down to a single, perfect comma.
He does not need to grow tall
to be seen; he simply becomes
the very ground everyone else
is standing on to reach the microphone.
It is a specialized form of labour—
holding the ecosystem together
with nothing but a network of threads
and a refusal to join the shouting match.
As he adds another ring to his internal minutes,
one suspects he isn’t celebrating
so much as checking the soil’s pH levels
to ensure the next generation of _Kongis_
doesn’t come out stunted or,
‘Talá forbid, unedited.
We should probably offer a cake,
though he would likely prefer
to break it into spores
and distribute it among the rising saplings
until there is nothing left for himself
but the quiet, dark, and essential work
of being the thread settling the quarrel
between the pocket and the trouser.
***
_Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.🇳🇬_
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