Peony poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Denise at Dare to Care for Roundup.

This week's ArtSpeak: WOMEN features a peonies from Berthe Morisot. Many of us love peonies, and with good reason. They're so fluffy and fragile and fleeting...a garden "must," if you ask me! 

In the language of flowers, pink peonies (like Morisot's) are said to represent bashfulness (b/c of the myth of a nymph hiding inside the flower). Read more here!

Perhaps you know Mary Oliver's gorgeous "Peony" poem? It starts with "green fists" and ends with the speaker of the poem hurrying "half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden" toward (fleeting) wildness. Love!

Also, in my research for the poem, I discovered there's a book called Peony by Pearl S. Buck. I just ordered it from my library. Hooray!

O, Peony

I think you

may be a lost cloud

come to mist

bliss on me.

- Irene Latham

Quick process note: In the first draft of my poem, the peony had come to "rain / happiness." Those words felt too expected, so I tunneled around the thesaurus until I found "mist / bliss." Not only do these words sort of rhyme, but they also better suit the fluffiness of a peony!