The Daffodils

Sunday night we took Peter's father out for dinner and when we dropped him off I picked some of Peter's mother's daffodils in the dark, most of which were already all papery and dried up.
I remembered that when she was home summer before last, dying of breast cancer, all the daffodils were in bloom--they bloomed through the spring and into summer. I hadn't thought at the time how unusual to have daffodils in August.

(11x15 sheet)


Only a few more days of National Poetry Month and I have too many poems queued up ready to go!

The Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A Poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.