Loving the peonies,

I held myself

in question:

how can I be so scared,

when they have

such daring?

The audacity

to bloom in

such beauty

and self-possession.

No delicacy or

diminution,

but a full

chorus revelling

in the ephemeral.

And yet, not without

wisdom –

there is nothing

hedonistic or

indulgent

about them.

Foliage of forest green

holds the memory

both ancient and

ever-present

that to choose life

is to befriend

the poetry of its

completion.

That these loving

emissaries,

boundless for a

fleeting moment,

are bound towards

an ending.

And they teach

in their being:

what is more

grievous than death

is to hide in

life’s shadow,

sitting in foreboding,

for fear that endless, ashen

sorrow is safer

than the oceanic fantasia

of living and losing.

And as the

peonies crest,

and their

petals begin to fall,

I sit with my fears,

holding them

in my palms

for as long as

I can bear,

before gently dedicating them

to the pearlescence

of the clouds passing by.