Peonies

##### PeoniesMary 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?

###### MARGINALIA

The sad ache of the body when it is exhausted to its bones. A deep, intense craving to find the curve of the bed, the leftover warmth from this morning. To burrow. To be shameless: here, a plea to ask for a cocoon of arms and legs and lips and hair and sighs.

###### ABOUT MARY OLIVER

Mary Oliver was born and raised in Maple Hills Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Oliver’s poetry won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and a Lannan Literary Award for lifetime achievement. Her last books included A Thousand Mornings (2012), Dog Songs (2013), Blue Horses (2014), Felicity (2015), Upstream: Selected Essays (2016), and Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (2017). Oliver lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound,… [(more)](#)

###### ENDNOTES

- Explore other works in pursuit of: [awe](https://readalittlepoetry.com/tag/awe) • [beauty](https://readalittlepoetry.com/tag/beauty) • [ephemerality](https://readalittlepoetry.com/tag/ephemerality) • [Or browse the index](https://readalittlepoetry.com/index)

- If this work resonates with you, [**please consider supporting the archive**](https://ko-fi.com/readalittlepoem). Thank you for reading.