daytime!

It's light now at close to 5:30 am, which is just about the best thing ever.  

While YES, I've had spring fever for a while now, nothing gives me the incipient summer madness like this early morning light.

This is when I start dashing outside before 6, to see what wonders have transpired overnight, to check before it's hot-as-blazes on who grew and how much yesterday.

And always the question: are the bees flying yet?

This is the time of year that I always hear Mary Oliver in my head, as I walk around stunned in my bathrobe:

Do you love this world?
      Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
       Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
   and softly,
      and exclaiming of their dearness,
       fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
    their eagerness
      to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
        nothing, forever?

The air is warm already as I walk around early, cherishing this early light. Waiting, yes, for the peonies to open and the bees to fly, but already full and content as soon as it's daytime, best thing ever.

XX

For a treat, here is Mary Oliver herself reading three poems, the last of which is Peonies in its entirety.