Spider orchids

by fiona cartwright

          A thin pelt of mouse-ear hawkweed
coats the hauled-up seabed

           ghosted with chalk.
In the green the spider orchids

           hatch from the earth in hordes,
blacking the hillside like pufflings

            emerging from burrows
under a live confetti of painted ladies

            flying head-height off the sea
below a skylark pebbling

            its notes together.
Beneath the song’s apex

            the orchids are half-emerged,
egg-toothing their way out of bud, flowering

             in memoriam for your son.
He did not see a single spring through, the spring

             we accuse of shortness,
while we wind forty of them through our fingers

              like prayer beads
strung into a perfect spine.