“I step aboard the orchid boat” — Image by kenneDepartures
by Lee Harwood
A hot summer night,
the sound of rain in the courtyard.
A satin breeze
sways the curtains.
She wrote
‘Gently I open
my silk dress and float alone
on the orchid boat. Who can
take a letter beyond the clouds?’ *
All those years ago
And he wrote
‘A picture held us captive and we
could not get outside it.’
When the winter came
she wrote
‘I put on my new quilted robe
sewn with gold thread.’ **
—that face, the tilt of those shoulders
Is that how you saw it?
Passing a mirror in a dusky corridor
—that face, the tilt of those shoulders.
Or in the bright light of morning
the details of your face in that mirror
—a picture, as though set, that maps
the wear of years, dreams,
that this is where we’ve come to,
and the future best left to itself.
The letter will reach the other side of the mountains,
clouds will roll back clear of the summits.
What was needed was done, but never done,
it’s never done.
Plodding along the mountain path—
drifts of rain, streams sweeping across the path,
cloud so low you can barely see the path
as you stumble on loose rock.
How to imagine an orchid boat?
It gets harder. But days come and go,
the sun comes out and everything seems to sparkle
and the letter spirals away.
The picture in the mirror seemed so real,
though only caught that imprisoning moment.
A golden leaf in autumn spins into a dark river
where the currents dance it underwater back and forth, side to side.
Without thinking
I step aboard the orchid boat,
the feel of silk
carrying me beyond all mirrors.
— from The Orchid Boat, by Lee Harwood
I step aboard the orchid boat — Images by kenne
