Rain mingled with the ticking of sleet. The early daffodils cluster together, heads nodding, like youths defying a social-distancing order.
daffodils
Saturday March 21, 2020
Each day the silence grows a little deeper. My self-isolating mother stops on her way past to pick a bouquet of just-opened daffodils.
Saturday February 29, 2020
Leap day. The sun comes out while snowflakes still circle the house. Around the old ruin of a dog statue, daffodils’ green fingertips.
Monday April 08, 2019
A winter wren warbles his spring song beside the springhouse, appropriately enough, where daffodils have just begun to open.
Tuesday April 02, 2019
Neither hot nor cold, and the sun’s neither out nor in. The daffodil spears look just a little taller, and the moss maybe a bit more bright.
Wednesday May 02, 2018
A squirrel emerges beside the one white miniature daffodil, just coming into bloom as the others shrivel. A Baltimore oriole’s glossy song.
Friday April 27, 2018
The rain peters out, and the daffodils stop bobbing to its beat like headbangers. A gnatcatcher resumes its sallies from the lilac bush.
Friday April 20, 2018
Bright sun, icy breeze. Between creaks of a tree, a turkey’s gobble: like the engine turning over in a clown car. Daffodils bob and sway.
Saturday April 14, 2018
The first daffodils point their ear-trumpets toward the forest: a tom turkey’s florid declarations, a blue-headed vireo’s quiet song.
Tuesday March 27, 2018
Under a low cloud ceiling, the keening calls of waxwings. Daffodils have raised their green spears all around the broken statue of a dog.