Growing like coral among shadows

This brief (title) poem is taken from the 1995 Michael Longley collection, as pictured.

A poem, about being a poem ;-)


The Ghost Orchid

Added to its few remaining sites will be the stanza
I compose about leaves like flakes of skin, a colour
Dithering between pink and yellow, and then the root
That grows like coral among shadows and leaf-litter.
Just touching the petals bruises them into darkness.

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Michael Longley (1939 - )

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