It was just a normal Saturday the kind where the sun was really hot making you want to stay inside or sit under a mango tree. But something made me go out to the backyard that afternoon. Maybe it was the banana leaves rustling in the wind or maybe i just wanted to check on the small herbs i been forgetting. Whatever it was i found something that made me look at our backyard in a whole new way.
Behind the old narra tree the one whose roots had pushed up the concrete path a long time ago i saw something weird. It was not a flower or a new plant. Stuck to the rough bark it looked like someone had spilled shiny paint by accident.
I got closer covering my eyes from the sun peeking through the leaves and realized it was a fungus. Not the usual mushroom with a cap and stem this was different almost like something from another world. It spread across the bark in big wavy sheets a mix of soft blue dark purple and brown with a thin white edge that looked like a ghost. It was like a tiny magical place drawn right on the tree.
The colors were what made me stop and look. They were not bright and loud, but they had a warm old glow to them. The blue looked like the sky right before a storm, and the purple was like ripe plums that had been squeezed a little. There were also parts that were light brown, blending in with the tree’s bark like the tree itself had put on these pretty patterns. The feel of it was not sticky or soft it was hard and a little like leather with small bumps and dents that caught the light in cool ways. Some parts even had lines like veins as if someone had pressed tiny leaves into it.
I stood there watching it for almost 30 minutes following the shapes with my eyes. I could not believe something so pretty and detailed had been there the whole time right in a place i walk past every day. Then i looked around and saw more not just on that spot but further down the trunk on a fallen branch near the fence and even on the old wooden clothesline post. “Napakadami pala nila!” I said quietly feeling so amazed. There were so many of them some small and new others big and fully grown each one looking different like a little piece of art.
It made me feel small, in a good way. I thought i knew every part of my backyard every plant every stone every corner. But here was this whole little world i had never seen before growing quietly and making the place more beautiful, while i never even noticed. It made me think about all the other small things in nature we miss when we’re in a hurry the little miracles happening right in front of us.
That fungus was not just something growing on a tree. It showed me how creative nature is and that beauty does not always have to be big or obvious. Sometimes it is just a soft, shiny patch on old bark waiting for someone to see it and feel amazed. It made me feel closer to the world around me right here in our small little corner and i knew i had start looking at my backyard more carefully from now on.