Peonies

Now that the garden has been bulldozed
by local managers, the jasmine

has been put to the ground for now,

lest the man in Burgstrasse 19 admire
the scent he feels coming through
the clear window across the seas.

Done with gardenia, I toyed awhile

with black-eyed susan (even drank it

dry in Kentucky), so that every other year
all would appear to come back alive
while she died, and I died with her.
This current patch of clay, now sand

or rocky ground, is one I thought

had a natural course for care, a furrow
deep enough in time for other flowers.

So I worked this land from end to end,
but they have taken away the light,
shade, good rain, even the earth for them.
I raised all from a nursery, the peonies,
this bright, lovely buckeye belle
that no one may buy, no one may sell,
a song that I hear day and night.
Anyway, it’s in my ear. You might have a
use for perennials, so I send you these.