This is a Phalaenopsis orchid, which lives in my window now, but I didn't manage to get my own photograph transferred to the computer. You get the idea. Mine is white. This is a web photo.
***
THE OMENS ARRIVE XI. May 17, 2015
Another omen arrives: a high-flying
orchid: ten white winged blooms
with fragile pink centers soar on
tall stems. Where to give them
“bright, filtered light”? I choose
the cat window where the other orchid
has sprawled over the window sill
and the old filing cabinet. May it
always lift my spirits. A Mother’s
Day gift from the family of two
Chinese-American young men I help
with their writing. When we missed
a week, I felt how they didn’t want
to let me go. Their young souls open
to me. They are high fliers, too. I
want so much: to get more books
in print, to write about my Russian love,
for the garden to produce food, for the
weeds to feed the hens and not keep
iris from blooming nor the besieged
daylilies. Time to plant zinnias, rescue
the volunteer cosmos. The orchard
needs fertilizing and belated pruning
of dead wood. Every day has its tasks
from dawn to beyond dark. I negotiate
my aging limitations reluctantly,
but still expect success on so many
fronts that I wonder if it’s all possible?
Can I outwit time to this extent?
My deep voice says yes, if I eat and
sleep well, yield when tired, vary
my activities and keep hope alive.
That’s where you come in. Your
love keeps despair at bay. Erikson
noted that ego integrity was harder
in these later years. We might say:
remembering who we are and what our
lives are for. My life is for showing
love and telling the whole story of my
life and the world I’ve created and
lived in. I’ve penetrated boundaries.
I’ve learned so much about the human
soul and kept my own in tact and healthy.
The world has largely ignored me, but
the people who matter have paid
attention. I do have a small but
significant audience. My work is
the main thing now: getting it done.
Hope is harder to sustain than despair.
Despair erodes determination; hope
feeds us all we need to be ourselves.
As lovely a poem as your orchid, Judy. I also feed the weeds to my hens except the ones like buttercups which must be toxic because the ponies avoid them. Today I've been a little despondent because of the incredible amount of rain we've been getting since yesterday - too much so it will be days before I can do any weeding in my soggy clay soil. Also, the sun room roof that was replaced a month ago is leaking worse than before it was replaced. Oh, well, it could always be worse, couldn't it.
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