Daffodils

Daffodils

(“Those on the rocky soil are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and yet these do not have a firm root; they believe for a while, and in a time of temptation they fall away.” Luke 8:13)

It smelled like mud where the excavator was working
building a new road into the new subdivision. Five
houses in all have been built, or are nearly ready.
The trusses pointed to the morning star until they
closed it all in.

The smell of mud is bracing, the smell of mud
invites the promise of spring. The road being built
will hopefully last as long and as well as every measurement
and lined with daffodil quilts, their bulbs warm below the
the winter sod. They wait there, under the surface,
for months at a time until there is more light than dark,
more day than night,
And slowly poke their way through the grass with
buds closed and delicately protected.

I like the ones that stay, that grace my walks with bright yellow
imitating the sun. I like the fences where they flaunt their full display
along a 12-foot section. They are butter and their stalks are made
of mud enriched by the neighbor who owns the fence. Facing west,
his daffodils get the sun for the warmest part of the day. There
are no stones in his flower bed. That is apparent from the joy that the
colors bring and how long they keep their mouths wide open
to the rain.

More Daffodils

More Daffodils

I wish the words could explode off the page in
an effort to explain
the blast furnace of pain
that eats at my ease within each
wavelength of my being.

A friend once asked me, after reading
my poetry,
“But where”, he said, “are the flowers and the birds?”
(and that was before the onset of fire-blades to my brain.)

Hidden deep in the suburbs, my walks are a chore;
living next to the mountains, I still saw less than more,
and the daffodils lasted only until the
next nervous tic in my mindless rearview mirror.

What I’m trying to say, to make plain,
is that these words are the tip of what is submerged
in sad electrical impulses that have lassoed even the
most lofty refrains of cathedral hymns.

Sunshine does me good until I go inside,
beaches make me happy until the door is closed.
It seems I’m predisposed to a setpoint I have not chosen.

And yet, I’m chosen and loved (human and divine).
But it seldom changes the flow of muddy ink that
paints me into these corners. I am pursued, not the
pursuer. There is love nipping at my heels.

But I’m boxed in, cowering and chilled, inside
dreams and visions I do not choose. A best friend
retreating, the better hopes receding behind the
vacancy hollowed by blackness and pain.

I would offer more daffodils if they would buy a longer smile,
more poetry if it would paint it all so clearly that

No one would offer solutions, pray my absolution,
ignore me, abhor me, but would
stand up for me when I said,

“I wish there were more flowers and birds
on my page than there are in my mind.”