Friday, May 6, 2011

Ghost Orchid

In 1882 the orchid hunter Roebelin awoke
to find the ladder to his tree house gone.
He lay on his back looking at flowers of lilac
and cinnamon through the hole in his roof.



Moon's ingress into Cancer
Shiva toenail against indigo
with dandruff stars

He comes back quietly to the house
He thinks he hears her eyelids open
Puts his hand on the place near his
stomach where he imagines
forgetting starts, stops
an out breath

The room is a dense garden of her
smell, soon he will have to say
something, soon she will reach
from under the blanket for his
hand

Lovers of the lovers whisper agitato
in their sleep somewhere past

Slick twinned legs of the Ghost
Orchid, still one with root and
nectar spur, tongued by moths
who won't strive to
outlive themselves

5 comments:

bruce dorlova said...

oh now this,

this is beautiful. suspended luminous in moonlight, heady with scent, likely to outlive us all.

word verification asks for 'ingen'. i apply various suffixes.

still, thinking.

x

Floyce Alexander said...

A terrific poet you are! Australia should be so lucky! Your Heroin Love Poems are especially remarkable, but this one is too; I'm taken with how you move from images to thought and back again . . . and again. Thanks for letting me find your blog! i.e., for having it here . . .

Miss Jane said...

Loved the quote. It places this poem in such a lovely spot and accidentally, as well.
Not in love with the first stanza. I liked Shiva's toenail as the sliver of the moon, but the dandruff of stars hits a false note for me. The rest of the poem is most beautiful. Lovers of the lovers, indeed. The final couplet gives quite the grounding note to this, suggestive of the finite nature of all things, even blissful love.

Graham Nunn said...

Amanda, these orchid poems... each one exquisite. There is much space here for the reader to breathe. The delicate beauty of emptiness and the almost, whispered on the page. More please...

Amanda Joy said...

Thank you all so much for reading & commenting. There are more coming. One later today, then I have a couple more almost edited. Get your point about the first stanza Miss Jane, it's actually probably a little personal & pointed.