She is brushing an ant off a peony bud. (Why do ants like peonies so much?) She is in her choir robe and is hurrying back to choir practice, but I think she should watch where she's going. She's a little too taken up with her flowers to be quite safe flying.
These peach flowers remind me of another peach flower I once met. When I was in third or fourth grade in Maryland, my class took a field trip to that lovely city, Annapolis. We were walking along a shady brick sidewalk, when I saw leaning over a fence (was it a cast iron fence?) a peach rose. In its setting of red brick and well-tended green it was astoundingly beautiful. I had never seen a rose that color. "Look at that," I burst out to the girl beside me. She was embarrassed, slightly angry, and she said, "Don't be so enthusiastic. It's just a rose." I felt shaken, jarred into a duller, dimmer place. I learned a lesson about being openly enthusiastic over beauty. Maybe I had already learned that lesson, but I forgot it when that peach rose took me off guard.
And they remind me of something else. In fifth grade, near the end of the school year we had a school outing to a local city park. Near the entrance was a mature border of peonies in full bloom. Once again I was astounded. "What are these?" I asked. My teacher said "Oh, they're peenies." She was a kindly Mennonite lady who wore homemade dresses and a white mesh cap on the back of her head. I don't know when I learned that peenies are actually peonies.
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