January 5th: Thinking About Peonies

January 5^th:

Thinking About Peonies

It’s the fifth of January.  Is it

too soon to be thinking about peonies

and the May grace of rain?

Is it too soon to think

the work of ants on the globe

of one wet bud, a duty of morning

and drops of water that all through

to March have been under

that old tricycle beneath the maple

and when a surge of warm

wind and a blessing of melt and fudge

mud and up somehow in a way

we cannot see, the evaporating.  To think

it’s been there nearly all winter long:

this drop of water on the top and then

slowly the bottom of this getting

toward bottom heavy flower.  I’ve noticed

that some don’t open at all--imagine:

the winter weight of drifts, snow, old

leaves, and mulch from some levy

break damage and mad slide down river

Mississippi, caught and hauled to dry

to be chipped and shipped up to browse

the rest of its broken life on top

of a pile of peonies--and these flowers:

under pressure, push up come spring

after all--yes after all.  The winter here,

let me tell you, I think it hasn’t even started

yet.  The snow’s packed and heavy,

it opens and closes like a set of lungs

we would never think to consider: inhaling

through to April, holding it all in. 

No wonder we keep our head down. 

Or at least I do.  Until I tire of it, and then

I’ll push myself after moving the two

feet of snow that’s fallen, after I’ve dug

out enough to get to the post office

and back in the sleet and the coming blizzard

I’ll look up at that section of the fence

and ask is it too early, thinking about peonies?