Daffodils*

A slow and sullen sadness

Crawls in on palm and knee,

A hollow hardened madness,

Pursues me, steadily.

Love lost from ages past--

Would that it would end;

Haunts, and, will always last.

Still, follows me, my friend.

“Away!” I shout, with fears:

“Leave me, do not return!

Haunt someone else with tears!”

But sorrow stays; deep it burns.

Then I turn, see her face,

Sweet, dimpled, school age girl,

Teaches me, her embrace

To love, not fret: blessed pearl.

Anon, again, and still,

She smiles in memory;

Oh, gentle daffodil,

Free up my poverty!

How easy it is to become hollowed from disappointments as we age, to become resentful, to rebut and resist changes that would free us from tendentious, false self-love. Yet life progresses; as they say, one rarely stands long in the same stream. Child-like innocence is too often readily lost, but its impressions are not--if one is willing to seek the Divine over our own self-constructed truth. Hence, the simplicity we once had as children here becomes a daffodil, symbol of renewal that one can be freed from the poverty of self-centeredness by embracing hope and love again.

*Dedicated to St. Therese, the Little Flower.