The girls come find me where I’m swimming, the water brackish, strewn with pollen. A blackbird keeps me company. The girls have snagged out-of-date cheese that’s perfectly fine and a tomato that’s sweetly ripe. At home, I dice last year’s garlic. I insist the girls admire the Bartzilla peony that’s blooming now, two blossoms and more fat buds of blossoms. The Bartzilla was a gift a number of autumns ago. My youngest planted the hairy root with me, skeptical. Now, for these few days, this peony’s a marvel.

All day, I’ve been thinking of this Mary Oliver poem. Well worth a share.

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?