The Cresset, Lent 2010 (Vol LXXIII, No. 3, p. 46)

Natural Selection

Christian Knoeller

Pausing before each orchid
as if a Station of the Cross

she has risen before dawn
to tend her tropical flock

as if listening for the trill
of a bird so rare

it’s thought extinct
the whispered prayer

of an exiled child
every petal

an icon of light