The Orchid Flower
Just as I wonder whether it’s going to die, the orchid blossoms and I can’t explain why it moves my heart, why such pleasure comes from one small bud on a long spindly stem, one blood red gold flower opening at mid-summer, tiny, perfect in its hour. Even to a white— haired craggy poet, it’s purely erotic, pistil and stamen, pollen, dew of the world, a spoonful of earth, and water. Erotic because there’s death at the heart of birth, drama in those old sunrise prisms in wet cedar boughs, deepest mystery in washing evening dishes or teasing my wife, who grows, yes, more beautiful because one of us will die.
From Dumb Luck by Sam Hamill, published by BOA Editions. Copyright © 2002 by Sam Hamill. Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. All rights reserved.