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 their 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 and brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and 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
I had no idea Mary Oliver wrote so many poems about flowers. Although we are not growing peonies at August Farm, the above words still apply to relating to flowers of other kinds.
One reason I enjoy farm work so much is because I have time to reflect on life and the natural world while I am feeling fully in my body, molding the natural world as though an art medium. I have realized that I am drawn to working with flowers because, in some ways, it marries the worlds of art and farming. The practical, task-at-hand, physical-labor-loving part of myself and the artistic, creative, fine-detail sides of myself are both exercised through the growing and arranging of flowers.
Farm tasks:
- weeding
- up potting
- re-mulching roses
An edited version of a film about Heide Hatry’s book Not a Rose.
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