“Peony Petals” by Robert Girvan
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Peony Petals” by Robert Girvan.
Peony Petals
By Robert Girvan
The peony petals scattered there,
were freshly-fallen white and fair,
no longer than a day or two before
my glance again fell to the floor.
They were closed in, brown-stained now,
their call of light and grace and how
I had to learn from what was shown
had dropped a note and changed its tone.
How to – or so – they seemed to say,
be fresh and light and live this day,
and when the time has come to die –
Quick now – into the bright blue sky.
Copyright © Robert Girvan
First appeared in Poetry Pause on January 23, 2020.
Robert Girvan has published poems with the League of Canadian Poets and in two anthologies: Fear of Others and Poems in Response to Peril, a non-fiction book, Who Speaks for the River?, essays such as “Searching Cézanne’s Provence” in The Goose, and book reviews in the Literary Review of Canada and the Globe and Mail. He has written a book of poetry, a novel about Paul Cézanne, and the memoir Death by the Billable Hour. Girvan lives in Toronto.
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