Shadowy

Maureen Scott Harris
From:   Garden Variety: an anthology of flower poems. Quattro Books, 2007

It was March. Daffodils stormed and blurred in the train's passing - along the speckled roadbed, from churchyards, at the foot of every garden - no dance, but a pour of yellow. My forehead pressed against the train window, my eyes dazed. O to be (I was) in England now.

The coach rocked, I felt dizzy, closed my eyes, opened them again and stared at tossing daffodils through my own face reflected in the glass. Near-transparent, features rising then submerging through smears of yellow. Self all but erased.

We walked a damp footpath beside a meadow stippled yellow. Small river catching the light, clumps of sturdy daffodils spilling down its banks - like a picture in a child's book - yellow cups and saucers, green spears.

It's March again. Snow smudges my study window and spring's lost in the middle distance. I stare at the swirling flakes remembering you and yellow daffodils, pale fluttering inside the storm.



                        remembering my mother

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