This northern sun which only shines
mid-morning on my kitchen sill cannot
ripen you to purple bloom.
You who would seek
the company of wild orchids
in the jungle will
have to bear my dishwater hands
and dishwater hair instead of the
exotica you might have known.
Yet perhaps you recognize that I, too,
grow high on the sides
of trees,
high on the cedars standing sentry
outside the window where we both fare,
and, like you, have learned to draw my
sustenance
from the very air.
I cannot offer
the blazing glory of myself, or even of
this arid fall, you who have need of seasons
not at all, but I bear witness,
Tillandsia, to your exile from afar,
and to the perfect selves you spawn that burst
like ripened clusters from
a shooting star.