Fairy Lantern

(Thismia rodwayi) 


There's a small, red-orange flower
that pokes up like a tongue from under
damp forest cover, as if without 
stem and leaves. 

The plant guides say it doesn't 
have any green pigment allowing 
absorption of energy from light— 
Perhaps it was born under 

a serious star, on a broody 
night. Perhaps it gets by 
through a kind of ironic 
detachment: wanting 

little, often overlooked 
despite its lightbearing 
name. Like it, I wish I could 
slip, subterranean, through life.

So far below, as if in a well,
how can our cracked, exhausted
hearts brave the elements? Above,  
bits of blue show through clouds.