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Column 379

Chiller Pansies

Intro by Ted Kooser
06.24.2012

I have iris­es that have been hand­ed down through my fam­i­ly over the gen­er­a­tions, being dug up again and again, moved to anoth­er house, anoth­er gar­den. Here’s a poem about that sort of inher­i­tance, by Debra Wieren­ga, who lives in Michigan.

Chiller Pansies

Your pansies died again today.
All June I’ve watched them scorch and fall
by noon, their faces folding down
to tissue-paper triangles.
I bring them back with water, words,
a pinch, but they are sick to death
of resurrection. You planted them
last fall, these “Chillers” guaranteed
to come again in spring. They returned
in April—you did not. You who said
pick all you want, it just makes more!
one day in 1963,
and I, a daughter raised on love
and miracles, believed it.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Debra Wierenga, whose most recent book of poems is Marriage and Other Infidelities, Finishing Line Press, 2007. Poem reprinted from the Nimrod International Journal, Spring/Summer 2011, Vol. 54, No. 2, by permission of Debra Wierenga and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.