Fat snowflakes fall on the daffodils’ down-turned cups, while a towhee chants—according to the time-worn birders’ mnemonic—Drink! Drink!
daffodils
The sort of rain that makes the world puddle-wonderful. Around the broken old dog statue, the daffodils have drawn their yellow hoop.
Crystal clear sky. Hundreds of daffodil buds look ready to open this afternoon. From up in the woods, a cry like a strangled crow.
Rain and the first daffodils: April has come early. Fog appears and disappears among the trees. The robin unspools a silver thread of song.
Among the faded early daffodils, one white narcissus blooms in the round flower bed with its broken statue of a dog, still holding point.
Another cold, overcast day. Daffodils and forsythia begin to grate with their unrelenting yellows. Even the Carolina wren sounds querulous.
A classic onion snow, still falling fast when I come out: big wet clumps of flakes weighing down the daffodils, turning the hillside white.
Intermittent showers after a night of storms. A dead oak leaf stands upright among the daffodils like someone at the wrong party.
Rain mingled with the ticking of sleet. The early daffodils cluster together, heads nodding, like youths defying a social-distancing order.
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.
Leap day. The sun comes out while snowflakes still circle the house. Around the old ruin of a dog statue, daffodils’ green fingertips.
A winter wren warbles his spring song beside the springhouse, appropriately enough, where daffodils have just begun to open.
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.
A squirrel emerges beside the one white miniature daffodil, just coming into bloom as the others shrivel. A Baltimore oriole’s glossy song.