Tulip Eclipse
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
When peonies erupt, they look like bombs
Of lava made of petals, pinks and whites,
Hurled up in mid-May air, or more like psalms
Performed by creatures singing in spring’s flights
Of angels through a cosmos made complete
With petals, petals smiling, not just petals though
Since at the hearts of peonies is heat
Of orangey yellow anthers with the glow
Of saffron. Beauty is so total there
That other blossoms disappear, are grayed
Out into nothing like the fatal prayer
An atheist might mumble in death’s shade.
..The peonies are prettier than girls
….And wives, more like a mistress’s minx curls.