Shame Ol’ Lady
Mimosa Pudica: St. Mary Parish, Jamaica
Sensitive plant, (Mimosa pudica), also called humble plant, plant in the pea family (Fabaceae) that responds to touch and other stimulation by rapidly closing its leaves and drooping.
--Encyclopaedia Britannica
Never takes much,
a fingertip’s touch, or
beak-brush of prey-
probing bird,
to trigger
survival’s minutest
nerves: to elicit such
cringe, and colorless blush
by which she
makes of herself
a sheltering purse
of frills folding in
on its prickle-
downed seam, her
prayer so thin
as to be silent, though seen.
Sub-equatorial native
pantropical now,
how this country
does christen you--
Shame Ol’ Lady.
Hereafter
the finical fronds
re-emerge, a fillet
of fine green tines:
and what slim heed
take the reverent,
O Lady
as prayer
makes its clasp
on this next hour only.
Mimosa Pudica: St. Mary Parish, Jamaica
Sensitive plant, (Mimosa pudica), also called humble plant, plant in the pea family (Fabaceae) that responds to touch and other stimulation by rapidly closing its leaves and drooping.
--Encyclopaedia Britannica
Never takes much,
a fingertip’s touch, or
beak-brush of prey-
probing bird,
to trigger
survival’s minutest
nerves: to elicit such
cringe, and colorless blush
by which she
makes of herself
a sheltering purse
of frills folding in
on its prickle-
downed seam, her
prayer so thin
as to be silent, though seen.
Sub-equatorial native
pantropical now,
how this country
does christen you--
Shame Ol’ Lady.
Hereafter
the finical fronds
re-emerge, a fillet
of fine green tines:
and what slim heed
take the reverent,
O Lady
as prayer
makes its clasp
on this next hour only.