Ghost orchid Epipogium aphyllum

The nightingale, Luscinia luscinia, sings so loudly that it can be heard at a distance
of two kilometres. Its song carries over the foliage of the trees,
over the stream and the fields, towards the moss-covered floor of the old-growth forest.

So high and clear is it that the small bird can sing forth ghost orchids there,
an orchid without chlorophyll and with a transparent bare stem
and ethereally beautiful white flowers, as if they were from another world.

And perhaps it is only the seldom performing nightingale,
it also in brown camouflage and unassuming in the June night, that can entice
the ghost orchid’s white, translucent flowers, those still very unfinished in their capsules
underground, sheathed in fungus strands and tangled roots.

For when other birds are silent, the nightingale sings its own name in the direction of the old-
growth forest, luscinia luscinia, and we dream along with it, half-hypnotised
by the insistent tempting of the ghost orchid, until the brilliant light of morning
catches hold of us and wrenches us out of all tendencies towards excessive enthusiasm, for
the forest stands there, silent and unoffending.

That is why we write urgently to the members of parliament about the concern we feel
for the natural forest and for all the endangered species there.

Before that, we have reluctantly, but for strategic reasons, had to reject the first
distraught request which insisted on immediate action, and in additions was couched
in insanely overdone turns of phrase.

So we write to the Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment, objectively and soberly
this time, though well aware that a wild rebellion is smouldering.

Les mer «Torild Wardenær / three poems // translated by John Irons» →