She brings them with her, and while she is here their little
bundle lays on top of the fridge and shivers from time to time, as do I. Later we put them in the perfect vase. Each stem falls into a fold – splayed like a
gentle explosion. They lean like they
would in the wind if the wind could blow in all directions at the same
time. And today, at times, it felt like
it did.
* * *
The daffodils she gave us are nearly spent. Over the last few evenings they have started
to give off a floral scent. A faint
premonition of imminent decay. As if to
remind us not to forget them before they are gone. In all that’s going on it’s easy to overlook
mere daffodils.
* * *
A week after she gave them to us her daffodils died. On the same day she met her first child. We replaced them with a second bunch – how
quickly we grow to depend on their presence.
And these ones saw us through the snow, standing firm while our one wild
one fell at the first fall. They looked
like the ones we made when we were young, when painting sections of an egg box
was considered fun.
* * *
We welcome our third one-pound bunch – twenty stems bound
together like yellow-tipped green pencils.
They will be ready in a day or two to draw a small picture of
spring. We stand them in the wide-necked
vase and let go. Like a game of
pick-up-sticks stalled at the start.
Like this spring, repeatedly halted by winter’s freeze-frame.
