MEXICAN ORCHID FOR LA FLORITA Copyright by Michael (Miguel) Forbus

Mexican Orchid For La Florita

P
aco picked this orchid for La Florita, his love, during the Festival of the Dead in Oaxaca. He was to meet her in the Zócalo at Zaruela's. He waited and waited and paid the mariachi to play Una Paloma Blanca over and over. They didn't mind. He also was heavy handed with the liter of El Presidente he had at the table.

He cradled the orchid as he would a wounded bird and splashed ice water on it for hours and finally it began to wilt and his heart wilted with it. No amount of mariachi could make him rise up again with the anticipation of a young lover. His eye bled rubies on his white peasant blouse. She never came.

Paco sits with shaky hands trying to write the poema that will bring her back. He wears the black cloak of the poet and his hands shake to get off one word. His tears are floods that make the mariachi play song after song to bring him cheer but to no avail. In life, he laments, hold deep love tightly in your heart and be wary.

He was never the same and he became a great but melancholy poet. She merely forgot the name of the restaurant where they were to meet. Life is sometimes cruel unintentionally and crushes some. Sometimes it is a huge mistake that changes one.

The great ending is the poetry where I go when I am melancholy and wish for a draught of sadness, not often, but it tempers my work.