Orchid

I need you like a flower without a stem, 

I'm just pedals and i blow to and fro with every passing wind without You. 

You make me in to something beautiful and meaningful, 

You sustain me through it all.

I think of my father and the rose i left in his casket. 

I wonder what it looks like, 

What it smells like.

 I wonder whether i can see the ribs my mother came from, 

The knees that bent to pick me up. 

Or what about the hands that placed the ring on my mothers finger, 

Or the eyes that rolled back and made her a widow. 

I don't know his voice or have any reconciliation of him beyond the wires and blood.

I wonder what he would think of me today,

What would he think of my honest eyes and the path of villainy behind them. 

What would he think of the grandchild i sustained for 3 months,

Then surgically murdered with remorse. 

What would he think of me now aged and coarsened. 

I'm not his delicate flower anymore, or was i ever. 

My life cycle was completed on a yellowed day in fall 05,

When night approached me as a shadow on a wall. 

One by one my pedals fell and from green i became brown. 

I became compost for the earth and i was sure that the life cycle had abandoned me there. 

But then rain came and it poured on to the little seeds right above me. 

Then out sprouted a stem, fragile but willing. 

The rain kept on falling and the compost started to stink, 

So I grew higher and higher to escape the stench. 

Before i knew it i was an 8 foot high orchid in your courtyard.

Now you tend to me and i will continue to grow.