- Free Article: No
- Contents Category: Poem
- Custom Article Title: 'Stranded Cactus', a new poem by Andrew Sant
- Review Article: Yes
- Online Only: No
- Custom Highlight Text:
This cactus looks as if, on a reef,
it could be neighbour to sponge, equally at ease
under the sea – or strange as some tentacled hydra
on the window ledge, free
of quickening leaves.
Giant-sized, in a desert, the colossus
fingers, uplifted, would look fine
or finer at sunset for being
in stark silhouette.
Thus no necessity to have the expanse
of the Mojave up close,
mesas, mirages, scree
– the ocean of sky which eagles grace –
and here also there’s aridity;
the cactus in its pot
surviving neglect, and now
rain, a deluge, smiting
the window, not a drop
to seriously bother the indoor climate.
Who cares when its yellow
flowers on long stems pouted,
craving some insect plentiful perhaps
in the Grand Canyon! Yet
it always proceeds, stoically;
and when the house
was re-opened, the cactus was still left alone
as earlier, the telephone.
For how many
millennia did its genus try
successfully to evolve utility spikes?
and now not a nosy predator in sight
while, root and stem, the cactus absorbs
available moisture. Thrives.
Admire it,
serial neglecter, and its tiny
needs – a bagged ocean
sponge was never as domestically
clever as this, if squeezed.
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