Man Made
This jungle orchid
South American druid
priestess with radiant brow,
shapeshifting into wasps,
the necessary lovers
who dance with branching generations
of her ancestors,
here she reposes, sylvan avatar
draped in ceremonial robes
the color of condensed human blood,
casting spells from a spiring throne
floating above the jungle floor,
incarnation of the God of Rays
who appears each day
by order of long dead emperors
to touch all His creatures
with storms of life and death,
emperors who could have fallen
from anaphylactic shock, emperors
whose common minions
could not encode the name
of Viracocha
in the vapor of their breath,
the one who stopped the rain
because they thought themselves large,
taking it up and lending it
to His far away brother
to use for Forty Days
of orchid magic
jungle days to put talking monkeys
in their place.
In other jungles across
the globe,
one hundred thousand monkeys
empty their
bladders on the jungle ground,
carefully processed water
from the gurus’ favorite fruit,
from the shrubbery’s verdant tresses
and the swirls of carefree
springs. Slowly,
imperceptibly it rises
into
the air with the vapor of their voices,
which speak no human
names for God, but do the work
of honest prayers. Encouraged by these
voices and the sun
and flowers and insects in pursuit
of the future, it floats,
great angelic specter,
implored
by encrypted benedictions
to fall
on Ararat
as ice, melting again
in spring to fall
as rain
on the mountainous
edges of the Anatolian
plateau,
filling the tubers
of orchids
which in summer fall into human
hands that grind
them
into
flour,
blending them in salepi dondurma,
the aphrodisiac ice
cream,
known as the fox’s
jewels,
eaten with a knife and
fork in the shadow
of the Holy
Wisdom, her mysterious crown
hovering like ocean
bound mist.
A human, a breeder of
orchids, a Greek descended
from the jewels of Theophrastos,
sits like a two-legged wasp
within the sturdy glass rind
of a greenhouse
in a blue Kentucky valley
with hundred foot hills
on every side.
Mozart’s twenty second piano concerto
blossoms
from the fluttering diaphragms
of the stereo.
The flowers respond to it.
So does the human.
He has in his loving hand
a perfect mint julep,
the coolness of crushed ice,
crystals praying for peace,
a chorus of condensation
gathers and rains
in intermittent drops
onto legs stretched out
on a garden chair.
South American druid
priestess with radiant brow,
shapeshifting into wasps,
the necessary lovers
who dance with branching generations
of her ancestors,
here she reposes, sylvan avatar
draped in ceremonial robes
the color of condensed human blood,
casting spells from a spiring throne
floating above the jungle floor,
incarnation of the God of Rays
who appears each day
by order of long dead emperors
to touch all His creatures
with storms of life and death,
emperors who could have fallen
from anaphylactic shock, emperors
whose common minions
could not encode the name
of Viracocha
in the vapor of their breath,
the one who stopped the rain
because they thought themselves large,
taking it up and lending it
to His far away brother
to use for Forty Days
of orchid magic
jungle days to put talking monkeys
in their place.
In other jungles across
the globe,
one hundred thousand monkeys
empty their
bladders on the jungle ground,
carefully processed water
from the gurus’ favorite fruit,
from the shrubbery’s verdant tresses
and the swirls of carefree
springs. Slowly,
imperceptibly it rises
into
the air with the vapor of their voices,
which speak no human
names for God, but do the work
of honest prayers. Encouraged by these
voices and the sun
and flowers and insects in pursuit
of the future, it floats,
great angelic specter,
implored
by encrypted benedictions
to fall
on Ararat
as ice, melting again
in spring to fall
as rain
on the mountainous
edges of the Anatolian
plateau,
filling the tubers
of orchids
which in summer fall into human
hands that grind
them
into
flour,
blending them in salepi dondurma,
the aphrodisiac ice
cream,
known as the fox’s
jewels,
eaten with a knife and
fork in the shadow
of the Holy
Wisdom, her mysterious crown
hovering like ocean
bound mist.
A human, a breeder of
orchids, a Greek descended
from the jewels of Theophrastos,
sits like a two-legged wasp
within the sturdy glass rind
of a greenhouse
in a blue Kentucky valley
with hundred foot hills
on every side.
Mozart’s twenty second piano concerto
blossoms
from the fluttering diaphragms
of the stereo.
The flowers respond to it.
So does the human.
He has in his loving hand
a perfect mint julep,
the coolness of crushed ice,
crystals praying for peace,
a chorus of condensation
gathers and rains
in intermittent drops
onto legs stretched out
on a garden chair.