Lichen

The Little Old Man of the Rock January In truth you'll find it hard to say How it could ever have been young It looks so old and gray Wordsworth The Little Old Man of the Rock Some say it was Leif Erikson Some say it was Columbus But I say it was the Little Old Man of the Rock And I go further I say he not only discovered America But Europe, Asia, and Africa And the islands of the sea I'll tell you why 1.

How Little Mr. Lichen Discovered the World As everybody knows, we must all eat to live And how could either Columbus or anybody else Except Mr. Lichen Have done much discovering in a world where there was nothing to eat? When the continents first rose out of the sea There wasn't anything to eat but rock Rock, to be sure, makes very good eating If you have the stomach for it As Mr.

Lichen has It contains sulfur, phosphorus, silica, potash, soda, iron And other things that plants are fond of But ordinary plants can't get these things out of the rock Let alone human beings and other animals And that's why Mr. Lichen had the first seat at the table And always does On bare granite boulders in the fields On the rocky ruins at the foot of mountains And even on the mountaintops themselves On projecting rocks far above the snow line You find the lichens On rock of every kind they settle down and get to work They never complain of the climate Hot or cold, moist or dry When the land goes dry they simply knock off And then when a little moisture is to be had They're busy again A little goes a long way with members of the family Who live in regions where water is scarce Indeed, most of them get along with hardly any moisture at all The very hardiest of them are so small That a whole colony looks like a mere stain upon the rock While lichens are generally gray They seem to have been born old These queer little men of the rock You can find some that are black Others bright yellow or cream-colored Others are pure white Or of various rusty and leaden shades Some are of the color of little mice To make out any shapes in these tiny forms You must look very close And if you have a hand lens You will be surprised to find That this fairy land of the lichens Isn't so drab as it appears to the naked eye For there are flower gardens The tiny spore cups Some of them are vivid crimson And standing out on a background of pure white They're very lovely Some of the science people believe The colors attract the minute insects That the lens shows wandering around In these fairy flower gardens But just what the insects can be there for Nobody knows Since the lichens are scattered Not by insects But by the wind As a rule Lichens grow only in open, exposed places Although some are like the violets They enjoy the shade Some varieties grow on trees Some on the ground Others on the bleached bones of animals In fields and wastes And on the bones of whales Cast up by the sea Of course the whole country was awfully wild When the continents first came out of the sea But that just suited Mr. Lichen For there is one thing he can't stand And that is city life With its smoke and bad air Why can't one get one's breath? He says.

Why the lichens dislike city life.

So while you will not meet Mr. Lichen in cities, at least until after the people are all gone, that is to say, on ruins of cities of the past, you will find him beautifying the ancient walls of abbeys, old seats of learning like Oxford, and the tombstones of the cities of the dead.

No, it's not.

But I was going to-- The one I was going to, um, narrate here is called Out of the Wind, Hugged by an Old Willow Covered in Lichens.

Well, we will listen to that after we've set the mood with a different piece of music.

But first, let's listen to see what this is, and it may or may not be Paul, uh, Paul Quail.

Partially set.

Okay.

Um, I'm going to read Out of the Wind, Hugged by an Old Willow Covered in Lichens, and this was, uh, written at Narradale on the Thursday, the 23rd of March, twenty twenty-three.

"Today is the birthday of my great Auntie Lil, and, and who would've been a hundred and twenty-one.