J. L. Borges: The Invention of the Real

[RonPrice]

A BALLET OF STILLNESS

So much of our life is passed in a fuzzy, undefined feeling state that an encounter with the form of that fuzziness-is shocking, thrilling, beautiful.
-J. L. Borges in The Invention of the Real, Richard Stern, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1982, p.32.

Your red beards deceptively smile(1)
at me from outside the window
and your red pistils or anthers,
the female part, always cocked,
ready for action at the end of
your long green stem, protected
in a pot, on this brick pavement
on this first Saturday in spring.

In the breeze you lift your
white and yellow petals in
the gentlest dance, all stepping
in unison through the air in
coloured choreography,
a professional parade here
in the theatre of this garden,
a ballet of grace and charm,
cool, pure delight, lifting,
swaying and stillness.

Ron Price
5 September 1998

1 orchids