Excerpt from Dawn Recital #3,
as transcribed by Orla Merrin
(beneath the amber reed horn, tuned to fog-pitch):

Before the first footfall of light, I stir,
In rags of grey I spin my verse unseen--
Each root a thought, each spore a trembling word,
My rhyme a breath caught deep in limestone’s spleen.

I speak of fossils folded into prayer,
Of winds that once named rivers after stars,
And how the hare forgot the fox’s dare,
But I-moss-mouthed--I remember who we are.

A startling new species of lichen has been identified clinging to the northeast-facing rocks of Gull’s Hollow, just above the tide-licked edge of the Echo Shelf. Villagers report that this peculiar organism, tentatively named Lichen poeticus, emits rhythmic vibrations in the early morning--vibrations which, when amplified through a hollow reed or a certain cracked conch shell, are perceived as whispered verse.

First observed by Orla Merrin during one of her 5 a.m. notebook walks, the lichen appears inert by moonlight but begins its recitations precisely 20 minutes before sunrise, alternating between sestinas and what local amateur geologist Maudie O’Byrne calls “sonnets with mossy logic."

Key observations from Orla

It grows only on weathered schist with a quartz vein running east-west.

Its surface bristles faintly before speech begins, then settles back into velvet greygreen silence.

The poetry often references cloud patterns, mineral memory, and old village secrets best left buried.

And from Tie One On, "A recording device captured the dawn recital on Tuesday."

Excerpted “All the rocks remember, but only I rhyme / what the fern forgot and the robin confessed…"

Further investigation is underway to determine whether the lichen’s poetry changes with humidity, seismic shifts, or who’s listening.