The Night-Blooming Cereus
And so for nights
we waited, hoping to see
the heavy bud
break into flower.
On its neck-like tube
hooking down from the edge
of the leaf-branch
nearly to the floor,
the bud packed
tight with its miracle swayed
stiffly on breaths
of air, moved
as though impelled
by stirrings within itself.
It repelled as much
as it fascinated me
sometimes–snake,
eyeless bird head,
beak that would gape
with grotesque life-squawk.
But you, my dear,
conceded less to the bizarre
than to the imminence
of bloom. Yet we agreed
we ought
to celebrate the blossom,
paint ourselves, dance
in honor of
archaic mysteries
when it appeared. Meanwhile
we waited, aware
of rigorous design.
Backster's
polygraph, I thought,
would have shown
(as clearly as it had
a philodendron's
fear) tribal sentience
in the cactus, focused
energy of will.
The belling of
tropic perfume–that
signaling
not meant for us;
the darkness
cloying with summoning
fragrance. We dropped
trivial tasks
and marveling
beheld at last the achieved
flower. Its moonlight
petals were
still unfold-
ing, the spike fringe of the outer
perianth recessing
as we watched.
Lunar presence,
foredoomed, already dying,
it charged the room
with plangency
older than human
cries, ancient as prayers
invoking Osiris, Krishna,
Tezcatlipoca.
We spoke
in whispers when
we spoke
at all . . .
Robert Hayden, Collected Poems, Liveright
Publishing, 1997.
