Poetry Challenge: Poem #5 of 5

This is it! The last poem I'm posting for the Poetry Challenge Katie tagged me in. And I have saved what I consider to be one of my best poems for last. But before I share it, allow me to tell you a little bit about its journey.

A summer or two ago when I was in a major writing slump, I was looking for a muse of sorts... something to inspire me beyond what I normally write. At the time, one of my best friends since college, Ileana Garcia-Spitz had traveled to Panama over that summer. I should also tell you now that Ileana is an extremely gifted and talented photographer. SO ... not only did she come back with gorgeous photographs of the area and its people, she also had a showing of those photographs soon after she got back home. This is where I fell in love with the photo that would inspire me. I had no choice but to ask her permission to write a poem about the picture.

The next thing I did was arrange a meeting with Ileana so that I could get enough information from her about the picture that would give me some general ideas, but not so much it would not allow me to create my own story about the picture. But a perfectionist gets in the way of herself, and the pressure was on (only in my head, of course). But still true to some degree because I was not writing a poem about some picture I found online, taken by a photographer I'd never heard of. No! I was writing a poem for one of of my best friends about a photograph she took that spoke to me. And it was my job to do attempt to do as much justice to the photograph as I possibly could.

Seeing as how the photo was taken in Panama. I needed to put my old reporter's hat on and dig for information about Panama and the area that would give me the detail I needed to make it as genuine a poem as I could. In digging, I found a photo of an white orchid called the Flower of the Holy Spirit (the national flower of Panama). What makes it so unique is the way the orchid seems to have a dove in the center of its flower. This was my basis for the poem. Below the image is the poem. I hope you enjoy it.

Source: http://panamatourismtravel.blogspot.com/2012/06/flower-of-holy-spirit.html

Wild Seeds

Flower of the Holy Spirit

peeks beyond Grocer’s window,

observes life from where the wind

blew its tiny seed, separated

from the tree-born terrain it calls home

Two women now stand where the sun

falls, the white dove in the Orchid’s

center turns to recognize shadows

cast, entranced by their stature,

powerful stares that seep deep into her

Spirit and are forever carried with her

                                                                                                       

The Orchid does not know of generational

differences or what brings the women

to shadow its path; yet unaware, the shadow

gives the Orchid its indirect light to thrive

Like the wild seed that grew alongside

Grocer’s window, the women live

unaware of their strength. In defiance

of one another, they stand together,

transplanted from their native land,

because they never knew they weren't

supposed to survive there in the first place