Night Flowering Lotus, Mae Hong Son

by James Green

At dusk all things are gray

except the lotus.

It rises from the mud,

the stem breathing slowly

through water

that smells of stone and leaf.                                                   

No one is watching.

Petals loosen one by one.                                          

White as communion wafers,

the shapes learn the language of moonlight,

opening to stars falling onto the pond.

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James Green is a retired university professor and administrator. He has published six chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. He has been nominated for the Puschcart Prize and Best of the Net multiple times. He divides his time between his home in Indiana and Mae Hong Son, Thailand, where he volunteers with the Jesuit Refugee Service. His website can be found at www.jamesgreenpoetry.net.