a bouquet of peonies

I can’t tear myself away from home these days, nor am I getting much of anything done around here. The peonies are in bloom. And I don’t want to miss a moment of their brief, luxuriant season. Most mornings I’m in the garden within minutes of waking, to pay my quiet respects to the outrageously generous display going outside our door . At dusk I wander, scissors in hand, cutting fragrant armfuls to carry inside. For this week only, there are peony bouquets everywhere. Every vase and jar I own is full, the air is thick with the sweet, subtle scent, and still they come, a succession of blooms. I cherish every one.

If you were to drop by my house for a cup of tea and a chat this afternoon, I’d send you home with peonies.

But as it happens, I’m here alone on this June day, typing at my little table on the porch. There’s no need, and no room, for yet another bouquet in the house. And so I offer you, instead, a bouquet in words and photos. Here are my dear peonies and some lines – from poets and gardeners and ancient Chinese haiku artists — that pay them homage. Inhale deeply. Peony season, like life itself, is precious, fleeting.

Peonies

Heart-transplants my friend handed me:

four of her own peony bushes

in their fall disguise, the arteries

of truncated, dead wood protruding

from clumps of soil fine-veined with worms.

“Better get them in before the frost.”

And so I did, forgetting them

until their June explosion when

it seemed at once they’d fallen in love,

had grown two dozen pink hearts each.

Extravagance, exaggeration,

each one a girl on her first date,

excess perfume, her dress too ruffled,

the words he spoke to her too sweet—

but he was young; he meant it all.

And when they could not bear the pretty

weight of so much heart, I snipped

their dew-sopped blooms; stuffed them in vases

in every room like tissue-boxes

already teary with self-pity.

~ Mary Jo Salter

“The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty. . . . Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.”

~ Robertson Davies, What’s Bred in the Bone

By the Peonies

The peonies bloom, white and pink.

And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,

A swarm of tiny beetles have their conversation,

For the flower is given to them as their home.

Mother stands by the peony bed,

Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,

And looks for a long time into peony lands,

Where one short instant equals a whole year.

Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks

She repeats aloud to the children and herself.

The wind sways the green leaves gently

And speckles of light flick across their faces.

The charms of the ordinariness soothe the threat of anxiety.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

When the peonies bloomed,

It seemed as though were

No flowers around them.

~ Kiitsu

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

In the stillness,

Between the arrival of guests,

The peonies.

~ Buson

Dusk on the flower

Of the white peony,

That embraces the moon.

~ Gyodai

Peonies at Dusk

White peonies blooming along the porch

send out light

while the rest of the yard grows dim.

Outrageous flowers as big as human

heads! They’re staggered

by their own luxuriance: I had

to prop them up with stakes and twine.

The moist air intensifies their scent,

and the moon moves around the barn

to find out what it’s coming from.

In the darkening June evening

I draw a blossom near, and bending close

search it as a woman searches

a loved one’s face.

~ Jane Kenyon

The peonies have fallen,

We parted

Without regret.

~ Hokushi

What peonies!

one poem per flower

will not do

~ Ryumin

Though mine,

I hesitate to pluck

the peonies

~ Baishitsu

Half a mind

to dress up and bow down

to the peony

~ Shiki

“It always seemed to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June.  Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose’s voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its petticoats with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty.”

~ Vita Sackville-West

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