Poem for Tuesday and Hillwood Orchids

Orchids
By Hazel Simmons-McDonald

I leave this house
box pieces of the five-week life I’ve gathered.

I’ll send them on
to fill spaces in my future life.

One thing is left
a spray of orchids someone gave
from a bouquet one who
makes a ritual of flower-giving sent.

The orchids have no fragrance
but purple petals draw you
to look at the purple heart.

I watered them once
when the blossoms were full blown
like polished poems.
I was sure they’d wilt
and I would toss them out with the five-week litter.

They were stubborn.
I starved them.
They would not die.

This morning the bud at the stalk’s tip unfurled.

I think I’ll pluck the full-blown blooms
press them between pages of memory.

Perhaps in their thin dried transparency

I’ll discover their peculiar poetry.

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Monday was a Monday -- laundry, carpet cleaning, feeding birds between thunderstorms -- plus we found out the car needs a new axle and they had to order the right pieces, so we can't pick it up until Tuesday. I don't have a lot else to report besides a lot of screaming online about the same things I was screaming online about last week. 

We had fajitas for dinner and watched the first episode of the new season of Westworld, which is very different and so far very enjoyable, then we caught up on the new season of Wellington Paranormal, which is always laugh-out-loud awesome (and Rhys Darby!). Here are some of the stunning orchids we saw in Hillwood's conservatory: