Poetry Thursday -- Familiarity

Here's poem written in response to feelings brought on by the adoption of our daughter.

Familiarity

Two adults with children
Seen anywhere together.
First photo of a new baby,
Pictures of kids as they grow.

You search to see, cannot help
but ask – how are they
alike? Does he look like me?
Does he have the “family” eyes?
Does she have, heaven forbid,
the “family” nose?

How pleased we are to say and hear
“He looks just like his daddy” or
“She’s a spitting image of her mommy.”
As if a match was to your credit.

It’s done without thinking
this alliance of familiarity.
Why do we claim a child
through bone or body shape?
After all, the surface shows
So little of what a person is.

This superficial visual sort
cannot be the only way
to put together family.
What a different process if
character was as visible
as the color of the skin.

Poetry Thursday -- The Ghost Orchid

Inspired by a family connection to a recent news/Internet story.

The Ghost Orchid

Rare ghost orchid found in Florida
In a preserve we visited as children
Running sneakers on the boardwalk
So noisy we’ll scare everything away.
Luckily our noise did not bother the plants.

Just look at the roots, experts say
It’s been there for years as we grew
From children to adolescents to adults
Then bringing our own rambunctious children
To walk the planks but still no one saw the ghost.

Hidden behind sheltering green cypress branches
It bloomed each summer for two brief weeks
Beauty unappreciated, unseen, unbeholden
With nine blossoms -- three times normal --
Corkscrew Swamp’s overachieving orchid.

But a hurricane whipped by global warming
Tore the screening branches away to reveal
The rare blossoms to be cherished, prized
Like time has torn away the everyday
Making treasures of family memories.

London Lions

Decided to select what pictures to post from my recent London business trip (with one lucky day on my own) by following a theme -- here are my London Lions . . .
Lion from the atrium of the British Museum
Image of a Lion Hunt, again from the British Museum
A Lion Adorns a Building in the Middle Temple (one of London's Inns of Court)
Lion and tourists in Trafalgar Square
Lion that guards the end of the Westminster Bridge

Poetry Thursday -- Beach Theme

Felt the weather couldn't justify any other theme for this Thursday . . .

Tidepool

An inverse island of salt water
Sits shimmering under the cruel sun
Making a haven for skittering crabs
To tuck under wet rock and sand.

Movement dots across the tiny world
Lucky barnacles throw out their nets
To harvest the concentrated stew
Blinking like hungry Christmas lights.

Squatting anemones are pale coins
Scattered across the puddle bottom
Rising columns of bubbles betray
Others sheltered beneath the sand.

A group thrown together by fate
To eat or be eaten under the beating sun
Who will be left to live on after
The tide returns to rescue the marooned?