Templar Phoenix Literary Review - Spring 2001

Poetry by
Florence Vilén

Snowdrops

Snowdrop,
the rune of endurance,
bonnie but braver, surviving
the snowy attacks of crystals
when winter is fey,

a ballerina performing
beyond gravitation,
snowdrops the tapers of a robust Mary,
a Candlemas promise.

Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris)

Columbine conference flower,
five doves in pacific discussion
on annihilation,
every stalk a Geneva of summit meetings.

Plants for a cottage border,
a pre-industrial Granny
puts on her bonnet,
breeding her floral pigeons,

The Holy Ghost descending
fivefold
on early summer
every moment alive.

At Kew Gardens (London)

The splendour of rhododendrons
in blossom at Kew;
my idea - never tested -
of living with you.

From a lady's poetry album

Big-eyed pansies,
trying any season to express
the grand surprise
of finding yourselves in bloom,

blotched and fancy,
pensive in a mood of constant jubilee.
Think beautifully of me!

Yes, kissing-cousins of the violets;
grandchildren of the heart's-ease.
Do, please!

Weeding

Nettles and couch,
bindweed and thistles,
ground-elder, dandelion
and any anonymous number
of grasses gleefully strangling
rare plants of refinement
- Nature certainly
says it with flowers.

(Dicentra spectabilis)

Winter, sleeping;
the garden has done with hearts:
the bleeding, the weeping...

About the Poet -- Florence Vilén lives in Sweden and works in adult education, teaching and writing. Her interests in poetry range from ancient Greek to modern English; she has translated Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, R.S. Thomas, and J.R.R. Tolkien into Swedish as well as a number of classical Greek poets. She is also interested in haiku - and in most aspects of culture that make life more bearable and graceful.
E-Mail: florence.vilen@spray.se