Orchid Cactus

by Tamara Madison


I rise to a sky of milky stillness,
yet the plants are moving quietly

in their roots in a gentle unfurling
of leaf, a lengthening of stem.

For everything all around and in us
moves this way. Teeth emerge

from gums, nails like tiny glaciers
crawl across the nail bed, and life

pushes us along its moody current
toward an endpoint which is just

another new unfurling in a tale
of atoms moving within molecules.

Observe the squirrel who stands
and twitches her tail beneath the arm

of the cactus that just now
is preparing its wands to open

the silken flames of its flowers
to the milk-white sky.


* * * * *

"Orchid Cactus" first appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig Online and is part of Tamara Madison's new book, Morpheus Dips His Oar.

Tamara Madison is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Wild Domestic and Moraine (Pearl Editions), and two chapbooks, The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press). A swimmer and a dog lover, she is a native of the California desert, but she has lived and traveled in many places. She is recently retired from teaching English and French in a high school in Los Angeles. Her new collection of poems, Morpheus Dips His Oar, is just out from Sheila-Na-Gig Press. Read more about her at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.