Triantha Occidentalis

Poet/teacher/friend Mary Lee Hahn showed me this discovery of a different kind of carnivorous plant, which prompted this poem.

Triantha occidentalis

Are there secrets that you hold 

even now years after your first 

small white cluster of flowers pushed 

out of the boggy earth on a thin stalk 

toward the sun? You know it, 

that secret of survival in a land 

poor in what you need to thrive, and that’s 

enough: a sticky stem, such an 

unlikely place to gather 

the missing pieces,

a spine common as grass

contains your secret. 

Everyone needs a source

of sustenance.

Some hide it in dark places behind 

doors, and under pillows; they protect it behind 

a keyed lock. You’ve hidden yours 

in the bright-open

where no one would even think 

to look. And that’s how you 

live your good life.

– Steve Peterson