Field Trip Through the Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco

Field Trip Through the Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco

Sumac thrives in this sluggish air,
and chameleons rotate their turret eyes
among the greening branches.

I half expect stone age tribesmen
to stare at us between the fronds.

Light is liquid, pours through a glass ceiling,
shimmers among the pond's giant lilies.
The indoor gutters shine with water.

But this jungle also disappoints, a cupboard
of vanilla, cinnamon and coffee plants.
It isn't what I've come for.

While my mother fingers the petals
of orchids I search
for footprints of Hadrosaurus
among the mossy floors.

Dragonflies glide through the air.
Staghorns brood in the cypresses.
I carry home dreams of a Cycad world.

My mother boasts to friends that
I'm learning about the Eco system.
All night I lie in bed dreaming
not of insects and orchids

but of T-Rex thrashing
through the ferns.