National Poetry Month/Pansies

The bowl of pansies reminded me of some poems about pansies that my friend Anne Mulvey delivered to me one year with a basket of the flowers. She was kind enough to share them again.

I have a passion
for pansies
smiling faces
always please
 
But when it comes
to mothers
I'd have to say
I'm much pickier
about these
 
Only one will do
and that
(I mean she,
dear Mother)
is you!


Deadheading
I am kneeling here above a pot full
of pansies, most fully unfurled. 
Eyes steer hands that uproot those gone by
sorting, pinching, moving on,
and leaving most for another day. 
There’s a slowing to untangle
tiny torsos from entwined limbs,
to release stranglehold, freeing curls.
Most stay or go without a second glance.
 
A few interrupt the flow. 
Drooping faces catch and yet avert
the gaze. Faces down, crowns limp
and light and pale all look the same
opening up and closing down.
Eyes and hands work together
deciding which stay and which go.
 
Then hands bivouac into a jungle maze
as eyes peer into orbital home seeking
un-headed bodies that hands catch and hold
so that eyes can see if heads have come
and gone or not yet come at all,
can tell which have and which have not
been a bud and more.  Split
second coming, going, changing
direction, direction is not clear.

Anne Mulvey, July 5, 2007