Three-Birds Orchid

Robert Golden

Three-birds orchid, creature of my book:

Pink petals shelter white lip

With rimpled margin, purple-green crest—–

Voluptuous lip with its shadow,

Petalled guardians always at hand.

Flower of fragile stem, lover of solitude,

False flight in swinging form,

Death eluder in dark earth,

Years later you rise

In wet spring, green and avid.

The Field Guide’s photo brightly holds you,

Focus sharp, background blurred and dark,

The place “rich woods, swamp edges, flood plains.”

Somewhere away, perhaps not far,

Your birds slowly fly, wind-swayed, graceful.

Quotation from The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Flowers. This poem first appeared in California State Poetry Quarterly.