Dueling Daffodils

You just never know. So keep your eyes open. Keep looking.

Spring is returning to Maine. Yes, even Maine. With the exception of a frost that lost its way and landed here this week, the earth is warming up. The land and its people are pulsating with renewed energy, life, and hope.

And daffodils.

Bear with me. I won’t be talking about flowers forever. But, here in Maine, the winters can feel long. Perhaps you will understand that these days a certain giddiness prevails here. So, this week, just for starters, let’s juxtapose words from two famous poets. They both concede that spring flowers are beautiful. But they differ as to the import of that beauty. These two poems make me chuckle when I put them back-to back. They also inspire thought.

First, the famous poem by William Wordsworth:

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,
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.

For contrast, here’s Edna St. Vincent Millay:

April,
Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Does the memory of spring flowers fill your heart during vacant and pensive times? During forlorn times? During the long winter — either the actual winter or the metaphorical freezing of hope and promise? Or, is the beauty of spring simply not enough, considering the power of death and loss, considering the chasms grief can open up?

If you are like me, your answer to those questions may vary, depending on the day, the hour, the news cycle, the trials or triumphs you may be experiencing. No matter your answer, it’s okay. Hope rises up and fades away, coming and going in endless rhythm like the tides. Feelings change with the gravitation pull of our life experiences. That’s just how it is. Just as the earth warms and cools, opens up with new life and closes down with wintry rest, so do we. Sometimes we can savor daffodils during the off season. Sometimes their beauty isn’t enough even during peak season. Both poems point to the truth.

If I have one overarching philosophy of life, it is this: You just never know. So keep your eyes open. Keep looking.

Let me tell you a story about daffodils. One April, more than 30 years ago, my family visited Belgium. The trip was solemn. My close Belgian friend of 20 years had died suddenly, tragically, in a car accident. I wanted to spend time with his family, whom I also loved, and to plant a memorial on my friend’s grave. Such comfort, to reminisce with dear friends about times gone by and to share our feelings of sadness and loss.

Obviously this was not a sight-seeing or tourist trip. Instead, we focused on matters of the heart. But we did take an amazing side journey. Belgium, with its proximity to Holland, was the perfect place to launch a visit to Keukenhof, where the growers plant their springtime gardens to entice customers to purchase their bulbs. Honestly, I had never seen anything like it. Garden after gorgeous garden filled with the vivid colors of spring. (70 million bulbs planted across 79 acres, one website tells me.) My jaw must have remained dropped the entire day as we walked the many acres of beauty. These images from the internet give you some idea. But no image could ever truly capture Keukenhof. That just isn’t possible.

Keukenhof brought me comfort in the midst of sorrow. No, the beauty did not erase my sadness, but I was able to lay beauty alongside my sorrow. Beauty to keep my sorrow company.

Of course we had to order bulbs. I don’t know how you can go to such a place and not order bulbs. Then, come fall, a package of spring arrived at our house. We planted the bulbs and waited.

When spring emerged, we had our own little display — nothing like what we had seen in Holland, but good enough to spark memories, good enough to quicken the heart with springtime magic. My favorite ones were the Mount Hood daffodils, which bloom with a sort-of creamy color, but mature into pure white. They came up dutifully every year for more than 15 years.

I like to think they are still coming up, but I don’t know, because we moved from there to here. There were many wonderful reasons to move to where we live now, but of course any move involves loss, too. I knew I was going to miss my daffodils.

Then, one day, a couple of months after settling in here, a huge shipment of bulbs showed up on our new doorstep unexpectedly. Our beloved Belgian friends wanted to bless our new home, so they sent us a mixture of 200 bulbs. 200! Our yard would be a riot of color come spring!

Have you ever planted bulbs? First you have to wait for the weather and, critically, the ground to be cool enough. Then you have to wait for a day off from work. When you get that day off, the weather is invariably gray and damp. You don gardening gloves, but nothing can keep the chill out of your fingers. Planting those 200 bulbs involved something like work.

We planted, washed the dirt from our hands, settled down for a cup of tea, and patted ourselves on the back. Good for us — we would have a beautiful garden in spring!

If you have read this far, first of all, thank you. Second of all, you might think I am some kind of gardener. And I am! A mediocre kind of gardener. Sometimes a clueless kind of gardener. When I stepped outside the following morning, I noticed pockets of holes punctuating our yard. What? Holes where we had planted our bulbs the day before. What??? Turns out, squirrels had stolen our bulbs. Every last one it seemed. (That’s when I learned about the glories of black pepper. A layer of black pepper spread over the soil covering your bulbs will deter the squirrels. I now buy black pepper by the 5-pound bag.) I felt furious, disgusted, and sad.

Well, life goes on, even after the squirrels eat your bulbs. Fall turned to winter and, eventually, winter to spring. As the season warmed, I tried to avert my eyes from my garden to keep my sadness at bay. But then came the day when I accidentally caught a glimpse. What was that? Some tulips coming up? A few daffodils? Some bulbs actually escaped the plundering?

I’m not talking about “a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.” I’m talking about a few. Edna St. Vincent Millay would laugh them off and instantly pronounce them to be “not enough.” But those few flowers were thrilling. Beauty and life where I thought all was devastation. And you know what? Those flowers are still there, every single spring — even some of the tulips, which I had been cautioned to expect to die out. Every spring I remember that fall planting and the brutal discovery the following day — and the gift of life that had escaped the marauding squirrels. Every spring I also remember my beloved friend and his family — and Keukenhof, with the solace of beauty I found there.

A few of the daffodils that escaped the carnage of hungry squirrels.

There is this, too: Last spring all the forsythia in our area were scarred by dead top branches. Just bare sticks poked out where bright yellow should have been glorifying our yards. A few scrawny bottom branches sported scattered, sorry, pathetic blossoms. “What have I done to my forsythia,” everyone exclaimed! Nothing. Life did something to them in the manner of an ill-timed frost at some point. We all wondered what would happen to our forsythia going forward. Here’s what they are doing this year:

(The expert gardeners among you will recognize the mediocrity of my own skills when you observe how desperately this particular forsythia needs to be pruned.)

You just never know. So keep your eyes open. Keep looking. Store up any beauty you find for those days when cold and ice invade your soul. Some days that beauty will feel so far from being enough that it is laughable even to consider the notion. On those days, console yourselves with the fact that on other days things will feel different. On those days, even a tiny cluster of daffodils will be more than enough.

Love,

Sylvia