Silver Rain

Rain through living room window

In Time of Silver Rain
by Langston Hughes

In time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of life,
Of life,
Of life!

In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new.

Raindrops on window panes

Fallen peony flower with raindrops

 

The Not-Quite-Decent Peonies

Bouquet of fresh peonies from Carol’s garden

” . . . [the peonies] have come into their full adult beauty, not strapping, but statuesque — the beauty of women, as Chekhov says, ‘with plump shoulders’ and with long hair held precariously in place by a few stout pins.  They are white, voluminous, and here and there display flecks of raspberry red on the edges of their fleshy, heavily scented petals.
These are not Protestant-work-ethic flowers.  They loll about in gorgeousness; they live for art; they believe in excess.  They are not quite decent, to tell the truth.  Neighbors and strangers slow their cars to gawk.”
— Jane Kenyon, “The Moment of Peonies,” Yankee, June 1991

Thank you, Carol, for this lush bouquet.  It is scenting the room as I write this.  Ahhh!

The Gifts of the Flower Fields

The Georgetown warehouse of the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market

“We tend to consider bloom to be the ultimate gift of the garden, but the structure is just as important. For example, the phlox is beautiful in its mass of foliage, even before the blossoms emerge.”
— Stanley Kunitz, from The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden

Kunitz finds metaphors for his poetry writing in his flower garden.  Here is one of its lessons:  “In a poem, the secrets of the poem give it its tension and gift of emerging sense and form, so that it’s not always the flowering in the poem and the specific images that make it memorable, but the tensions and physicality, the rhythms, the underlying song.”

So, too, one of the lessons I’ve learned from the flower growing experts at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market is that you can make a spectacular bouquet from stems, twigs, pods, leaves, and things scavenged from nature.  Blooming is definitely not all a plant can offer.  There’s plenty going on in all seasons of the year.

The Seattle Wholesale Growers Market is a farm-owned cooperative with a focus on local, seasonal, and sustainable flowers.  I dropped in last week and was pleased to see that the Market is growing.  It’s expanded its warehouse space and is gearing up for its busiest year yet.

Here are some photos from mid-May at the Market celebrating its “underlying song”:

Sweet peas from Jello Mold Farm

And sweet pea vines

Calla lilies from Z Callas

 

 

The Dearness of Peonies

A few photos of peonies from this season’s show:

Pink peony

White peonies from Kitty’s garden

Peonies by the bucketful, Wallingford Farmers Market

Pink peony with weathered fence

Tree peony, petals gone

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?

Watercolor and ink sketch of peony

 

Peonies: Pink Possibilities

Bucket of peonies at the U-District Farmers’ Market

Peonies, ruffle after ruffle

“Imagine the hard knot of its bud, all that pink possibility.  Day by day it visibly swells, doubles, until one morning in June, it unfolds, ruffle after ruffle, an explosion of silk.”
— from “Peony” by Barbara Crooker

 

Peonies: The Epitome of June

Pink tree peonies

Blowsy bloom with its petticoat of petals

“It always seemed to me that the herbaceous peony is the very epitome of June.  Larger than any rose, it has something of the cabbage rose’s voluminous quality; and when it finally drops from the vase, it sheds its petticoat with a bump on the table, all in an intact heap, much as a rose will suddenly fall, making us look up from our book or conversation, to notice for one moment the death of what had still appeared to be a living beauty.”
— Vita Sackville-West

Watercolor sketch of tree peony

A Curtain Call of Peonies

Heavy, nodding heads of tree peonies

Large flowering peony

“One gorgeous late-spring morning, the garden offering up masses of peonies as if in a curtain call . . .”
— Dominique Browning, Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on Pajamas and Found Happiness

Watercolor and ink sketch of tree peony

Pink Tree Peonies

Pink tree peony

Pink peony

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?

Immense peony

Peonies: White as Snow Squalls

White tree peony

White peony

Weeds and Peonies
by Donald Hall

Your peonies burst out, white as snow squalls,
with red flecks at their shaggy centers
in your border of prodigies by the porch.
I carry one magnanimous blossom indoors
and float it in a glass bowl, as you used to do.

Ordinary pleasures, contentment recollected,
blow like snow into the abandoned garden,
overcoming the daisies. Your blue coat
vanishes down Pond Road into imagined snowflakes
with Gus at your side, his great tail swinging,

but you will not reappear, tired and satisfied,
and grief’s repeated particles suffuse the air —
like the dog yipping through the entire night,
or the cat stretching awake, then curling
as if to dream of her mother’s milky nipples.

A raccoon dislodged a geranium from its pot.
Flowers, roots, and dirt lay upended
in the back garden where lilies begin
their daily excursions above stone walls
in the season of old roses. I pace beside weeds

and snowy peonies, staring at Mount Kearsarge
where you climbed wearing purple hiking boots.
“Hurry back. Be careful, climbing down.”
Your peonies lean their vast heads westward
as if they might topple. Some topple.

First Peonies

Peony bud looks like a little globe, a hidden world

White peony and bud

Neighbor with peony bouquet

Luscious white petals of peony flower

I look forward to peony season.  My mother had a row of peony bushes by the clothesline on the south side of our farmhouse.  She always made at least one bouquet of cut peony blooms for our dining room table.  Peonies give me feelings of abundance and generosity because of the extravagant profusion of their petals.  I love peonies!

“It takes the hard work
of a dozen ants
to open each bud
of a peony.”
     — Ted Kooser, “Decoration Day”