Rose Pogonias. Off Brown Street, Kennebunk ME

Yesterday afternoon it was such a beautiful day, and we were back from my early Father’s Day lunch at Unos in plenty of time: I had to get out of the house. Both cars were gone so it was walk or bicycle, and I decided to walk to the gravel pit down the road from us, where, in years past, a tiny emergent bog one level down into the pit has produced a crop of Rose Pogonias about this time of year. I have been checking for them regularly in the real remnant bog at Laudholm Farm, but my memory is that they bloom even earlier on that exposed wet shelf of the pit. Indeed they were in full bloom, and they have spread from last year as the moisture level in the boggy area changes year to year. There had to a 100 plants in one area the size of a decent living room or a spacious bedroom. I had two cameras with me, and I spent a half hour or so among the flowers, enjoying every moment. The panel above, assembled in Coolage, shows several aspects of these beautiful blooms.

While looking up the spelling of the name, I came across the Robert Frost poem of the same name.

A saturated meadow
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers–
A temple of the heat.

There we bowed us in the burning,
As the sun’s right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
Yet ever second spear
Seemed tipped with wings of color
That tinged the atmosphere.

We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favored,
Obtain such grace of hours
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Robert Frost. I grew up on his poetry…a few miles, in fact from where he lived part of his life…and saw him read as poet laureate at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration…surely a high-point for poetry in America by anyone’s standards. It grieves me then to take issue with his poem. Sentiments have changed perhaps, but I could not imagine picking Rose Pogonias, or any other wild orchid…and the notion that no one would miss them…that is so “man” centered that I am surprised Frost could have written it even a few years ago. Of course, here in Southern Maine, I have never seen them growing in a wet meadow…only in mossy areas so saturated with water that no one would be tempted to mow them anyway. I do expect, some dry spring, to find that the bulldozers have scraped the boggy area clean, and drained the marsh that feeds it in the gravel pit…but the remnant bog at Laudholm is protected, as are the others in Southern Maine that I know of…so I am pretty certain the Rose Pogonia will continue long enough so my children’s children will be able to find the flower Frost wrote about in its wild state. Like Frost, I do offer a prayer for a “grace of hours” for the Rose Pogonia, for all the wild orchids, and indeed all the wild things of this world, which, for certain, whether we know it or not, we would so sorely miss if they were gone. They might be of no practical use to anyone…but they enrich our lives…feed our spirits…in ways we can appreciate even if we do not understand.

So when I find a spot, as Frost did in his sheltered meadow, or as I have done on the exposed wet lip of a gravel pit, where orchids still grow, I have that same instinct to worship and to share. I spend my half hour among them…in reverance and in joy…and bring you back a panel of images to share. Who knows, if Frost had had a digital camera with a good macro lens, the world might have lost some fine poetry…but it might be a world with a few more Rose Pogonias still in it. In the spirit I might be tempted by that trade. 🙂

So, with apologies in advance to the Poet Laureate.

I have never seen
the Rose Pogonia grow
in any place a man
would want to mow.

Mossy bog or fen,
where both worship
and photography
are wet business
about the knees and feet
as you bow

to breath and frame,
to fill your SD card
(and your spirit)
with the essence of what is still wild,
of no use, and of such great value
the stars would weep
if you picked one.

Therefore the picture,
and this poem,
that your spirit might also know
that still, the Rose Pogonias grow
in a forgotten corner of a gravel pit
just down the road from home.

Happy Sunday!