Brittany Nohra, Ireland-USA-Lebanon
Habitat Loss
I want to know
where the wild
poppies have gone.
Pepper scented
Cyclamen
and purple irises
with metallic petals
dark as the ruby
glinting in Astarte’s navel.
Lebanese Violet
as I dreamt it
was a veil of petals
in the hair
of your pilgrims.
I stand in what’s left
1. scrub
2. clefts of ruins
3. barest earth.
Wild Lebanese Iris
Tissue paper skin
and violet origami heads
coaxed open by sunset
their powdery veins
dust the purple night
of a field of skulls.
Their leaves stretch
from a grave of grass
at the highest altitude
rooted between cedar and rock.
Blooming
in May
to remain barren
there are few bees
left to squeeze through
fading mouths.
Brittany Nohra is an American-Lebanese poet and conservationist living in the South-West of Ireland. Her work has been published in The Ogham Stone and The Stony Thursday Poetry Book.