Joyful Purpose: Peonies

Peonies

Peonies are one of my all time favorite flowers - they remind me of my childhood - we had a garden that was down some stone steps at the bottom of our yard - it was grotto like and had an old stone fire pit and it was filled with trees and there was the lovely peony bush with these huge sweet smelling blooms and as I distinctly remember ants were always crawling all over them. I didn't realize until I grew up that these precious snowballs were called Peonies. So I when I found this poem by Mary Oliver my thoughts were complete and I watercolored some peonies and wrote the poem around the edge of the mat as a gift for a friend.
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