The Essentials:   The Peony

By Vicky Vitello on Jun 5, 2018   •   Topic: The Essentials


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*Photos courtesy of Christine Chitnis

“To be wild and perfect for a moment.” The impassioned line from Mary Oliver’s poem “Peonies” describes this devastatingly romantic, breathtaking blossom from the heavens. Full and showy, I dare say it’s impossible to walk by one of these garden blooms and not have your heart skip a beat at the sight of its soft layers upon layers, almost gushing layers, of beauty. It’s like the life inside is bursting out in all the fullness it can imagine. Suffused with an exquisite charm, their stems bend in an arc with their own weight, leaving the beholder in utter and delightful despair with the beauty that has overtaken them.

 

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*Photos courtesy of Electric Moon Peony Farm

Revered as one of the most romantic flowers of all time, these beauties are no stranger to being front and center at weddings. Whether drooping in a vase or being held in a bunch, their oft-gluttonous beauty nearly bends them toward the ground—in fact, upon first seeing peonies, Marco Polo is said to have described them as “roses as big as cabbages.” And a sure way to get to this girl’s heart is to take me to a field of peonies. After visiting one this past weekend, it’s pretty clear my daughter takes after me in that regard.

 

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*Photo courtesy of Vicky Vitello


Peonies

By Mary Oliver


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?

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