The Florescence of Peonies

A coral bud,
hard,
petals tightly wound ’round your heart
the day we brought you home.

Look at you now!
Poised,
beauty and wisdom in winsome
ruffles of apricot.

And tomorrow?
Pale,
colour and scent evanescent
in the dusk of your life.

Grandma, long passed.
Still,
peonies bloom, blousy, drowsy,
fading in her garden.

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Over a six-day period, Magellan GoPro’d the colour transformation of this single, Coral Sunset Peony from Hilary Miles, our neighbourhood florist. During that time (and for much longer), words transformed themselves into a poem. Magellan bought a new piece of software that he miraculously (and serendipitously: How can I recreate this effect?) massaged into The Florescence of Peonies. Then Spice asked, “Could we lay my poem over the video,” subliminally influenced by our artist friend Pat who, after we saw  MashUp together at the Vancouver Art Gallery, suggested we combine technologies. The result is our first “moving poem,” a videopoem/poemvideo. We’ve just discovered this site for videopoems/poemvideos if you want to see some really good ones.

16 Responses

  1. Beautiful. Peonies were my Mom’s favourite flower; and a lot of others’ too, I am sure. Your poem and the video really celebrate their beauty, short lifespan, and frailty..

    Good work.

  2. Loved the video/poem! Peonies are so magnificent but their beauty is so short-lived. Reminds me I need to start dead-heading all of mine at the farm. If only they could last all summer long!

    Hope you continue to make more of these creations.

  3. Bravo!! Beautiful and amazing images and words! Loved!
    Interesting as I Was able to view full screen on my Apple iPad

    1. Yeah—it was quite a process for Magellan to go from GoPro to Premier Elements to Vimeo and theoretically Vimeo adjusts for the device being used to view content.

  4. Good morning,

    Just a heads up that the video poems do not work on the Apple iPad, I tried the link and the iPad will not process the data.
    Interesting photo, to really appreciate the shot I believe you need to view on a big screen, still very crisp and beautiful.

    1. Dang. I tried it on mine and had to press the forward arrow around the word “ruffles”to make it continue. And you’re right, full screen doesn’t work at all on an iPad, even though Vimeo says it should.

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