Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open —
pools of lace,
white and pink —
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again —
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

Mary Oliver

Re: Peonies

Welcome, welcome, welcome!  Thank you so much for joining and taking my breath away with this beauty…

I'm going to just sit silently with this one for a bit.

Metta

Re: Peonies

Blessings Metta, and thank you. 

This was the first poem I ever came across of hers, and it seeped into me over many months.  When I finally found her published works-only one book is in print over here, it was awesome

Anthony

Re: Peonies

As I read this I recalled the lone Peony in an unkept garden i knew as a child.
I felt chills at Oliver's description of the ants. I saw them just like that, crawling over the buds to sip the nectar from the worm-bitten holes.
When the blooms broke out, they were a feast of torn ruffles, pink flesh and sweet odor.
Those flowers fed us all, the ants and worms and I. We hungered after beauty then.

Re: Peonies

Wow! I have not read this one before! This is such a beautiful poem! It moves my heart deeply and makes me wanna cry in a good way! :)