Pensee Poem by Phyllis Marianne Gardner

The purple pansies turn their faces to the sun.
All summer they will dominate the bed.
The tulips, radiant, came and went.
The lilies-of-the-valley, too, have fled
Until next year. Such beauty cannot last!

Why do those pansy faces stir my soul?
They've no exotic scent nor slender shape,
Just a round cyclopean face gazing outward
Watching. Ever watching.

Perhaps they're tokens of past loves,
Down paths I might have trod
Had we not met. So they remain
Wistful shadows of the might-have-been
Had things been otherwise.
The fates were kind to me when our paths merged.