A while back a neighbor was tossing out a few orchid plants that she thought were dead or dying. I rescued them, gave them love, and patiently waited.

I’ve been rewarded with not one, but two of them throwing spikes and blooming at the same time!

Best of all, they’re one of the few flowers that don’t trigger my allergies!

Slightly different shades of fuchsia bring joy.

I don’t know why anyone would discard an orchid; they’re not that difficult to maintain and there’s immense satisfaction when they rebloom.

I found an obscure poem about orchids by José Santos Chocano, written in the 1920s:

The Orchids

Freaks of bright crystal, airy beauties fair,
Whose enigmatic forms amaze the eye—
Crowns fit to deck Apollo’s brows on high,
Adornments meet for halls of splendor rare!
They spring from knots in tree-trunks, rising there
In sweet gradation; winding wondrously,
They twist their serpent stems, and far and nigh
Hang overhead like wingless birds in air.

Lonely, like pensive heads, all fetterless.
Lofty and free they bloom; by no dull chain
Their flowers to any tyrant root are bound;
Because they too, at war with pettiness,
Desire to live, like souls that know no stain,
Without one touch of contact with the ground.