Orchids

_photography

Tea house roof,
Daoist Mountain,
China.

To O.E. on taking Orchids back to his Country.

The pepper-tree burnt, the cassia split, and the
    beauties all aging,
The orchid still shows its pureness of heart on a
    well-hidden crag.
And yet we spare this sweet smelling plant
    for the travelling stranger,
As brambles and thorns have now all run wild
    across its unfortunate land.

                                    Lu Xun (1931)