After a night below freezing, the daffodils sag on their stalks like half-deflated balloons in the bright sun. The stream’s quiet gurgle.
daffodils
The tips of daffodil sprouts around the broken dog statue are starting to look a little worse for wear. The sound of a distant mob of crows.
The soft colors of trees just coming into blossom: birch, elm, shadbush. The bright yellow on yellow of a bumblebee visiting the daffodils.
A hen turkey bursts from the cattails beside the springhouse and does a dorky fast walk past the yellow daffodils and into the woods.
A cold wind at sunrise. Daffodils nod, while the forsythia shakes its yellow fingers in a vaguely apotropaic gesture. Hard frost on the way.
Ground fog up in the field glows faintly orange in the sunrise. Under the old dog statue, a cartoon yelp of yellow: the first daffodil.
Despite the steady rain and continued cold, the first daffodils are out around the dog statue, limp yellow frocks sodden against the ground.
Cold. The fat daffodil buds sag on their stalks. Will this be a year without a spring? Will warblers return to find a sleeping forest?
The miniature daffodils around the dog statue have shriveled in the night. Turkeys display at the edge of the field, reversible blooms.
Yellow at daybreak: forsythia, daffodils, the spicebush by the springhouse, a flock of goldfinches… what else? The sun crests the ridge.
It’s cold. The first two miniature daffodils are open, and stand among the crowd of upright buds with their heads bowed toward the earth.
Hard rain with a bit of wind. But dreariness is impossible with so many variations on yellow: spicebush, forsythia, daffodils, pussy willow.
A ray of sun penetrating the lilac illuminates the two daffodils at the base of its hind legs, and the dog statue stands on yellow stars.