This picture is about the full circle of spring and the peony, which blossoms, then dies, perennially. My mother died this month. She was 96. Charlotte Sr. was charming and blonde to the end. My daughter, Hadley, read Mary Oliver’s beautiful poem, Peonies, at the Service of Thanksgiving, for her life, was at Christ Episcopal Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was the week of peony bloom. She taught me to value beauty.

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.