Any traipse down local woodland trails
Reintroduces hiking boots to reassurances –
The expected and endemic in accustomed, nondescriptive
Roles and places: trees, shrubs, ferns and flowers just so.
But who wouldn’t wish for something singular now and then,
Some sacramental intervention.
Stemless, large, elliptical leaves,
Arched in opposing, gentle arabesque,
With veins arranged in telling paralleled display
Haunt the eye with hopeful speculation
About a coming flower. And when it blooms
It changes everything:
Your breath caught up in “orchid,”
Your eyes in corsage-worthy size,
Your sense of smell in esoteric fragrance.
This woodland once was just another local forest.
It’s been regenerated now and baptized with capital letters:
Henceforth it’s Ladyslipper Woods.
