• Flowers

    Flowers: those mythical creatures
    Lurking all around us.
    We cut them, and keep them;
    Still they grow, wild.
    If we halt our daily rush
    To see them,
    We speed up again, uneasy
    With such extraordinary creatures.


    More at home on an alien planet
    Than here on Earth,
    Strange creatures longing for a farscape
    Of twin red moons,
    And glassy desert sands.

    Daisies and daffodils
    Are only the apprentices
    To the most exotic:

    From deep in a volcanic rainforest,
    Stunning bird of paradise.
    Star-like Columbine.
    Snapdragons,
    Exquisitely formed Ladyslipper,
    Dendrobium Orchids,
    Epiphytic: perched on trees
    Like birds.

    Orange Amaryllis:
    A tiger on a stem.

    White Irises:
    The Swan Queen
    Of the flower kingdom.


    And others unnamed,
    One a hallucinogenic purple.
    Some so tiny and
    Exquisitely formed,
    And so cool to the fingertips,
    As to make you cry.
    We strain not to damage the flower,
    Fumbling and trembling.

    We look for the Buddha
    To slip the blossom
    Into his hand.