The Struggle of the Orchid
In a fortress of shoots, leaves, and amethyst,
Far away from the deceit of night and the torch of sun,
The orchid is conceived.
Curling her shy head into her knees, as of yet naïve of temporal things,
Patiently she waits to waken to the unknown mantle.
Then, unfurling in the presence of daylight,
The sun hanging above like a citrus draped in pale silk,
She flees her mother’s wintry demise, burying herself into the soil unabashed.
Lacking tenacity, her sisters are dying,
Hitting the soil like tears on linen.
Yet her dormancy blocks all sorrow;
Shallow, she all too soon forgets from whence she came.
Months pass quietly and without mark,
But before spring’s peachy clouds break horizon’s brow, the orchid already seizes root alone.
Harrowing and cold and foreign the world seems, but expansion leaves no room to be tentative.
Soon summer, full of rosy heat, begins,
And in the crevice of another she grows, ashamed to leech,
Hoping for once that her modest intentions are understood.
Almost, she can touch the sky, if not blocked by their shadow.
Then blooming, her fertility spreads abundant.
She is plagued by iridescent beetles and the shimmer of moths.
Her leaves, crested by the moon, dance to the sky,
Petals, sleeping in cream and lavender.
All watch her grow deep into the days,
Her children take to the wind, absconding
With her life, and are lost into the earth.
Then, breaking off her lamenting kiss with air’s harsh vapors,
The orchid lies dormant once again,
A conquered tribute to the earth,
Lovely in her bones.
