“Daffodil Awakenings” by Jesse Greist

April 3, 2022

I am a daffodil.  Until mere days ago, I lay curled up, asleep beneath the fallen leaves and frozen soil of winter.  In December, January and February, my sleep was deep, unquestioning, and reassured.   In every cell of my being, I was certain that it was too early to awaken, so I did what was natural, and waited.  There are times when we are sure.  Those are comforting times.  The world to me at those times is like a cloudy day.  I know that sun and stars, the blue of the sky are all out there, beyond what can be seen and heard, though we are separated by what’s obvious, dominant.  I don’t need to see them to know they are there.  In winter, the ground itself is my unending cloudy sky.  It is wrong to think that in winter I am not full of wonder.  I am alive, against all odds, full of potential, full of healing and regeneration.  Without the dreamtime of winter, the splendor of spring cannot come.  Without sleep, we surely will never awaken.  

Then, just when we least expect it, March arrives: the month of uncertain opportunity; the month of asking “is it time yet?” and never getting a clear answer.  I know that If I extend myself out into the first warm day too quickly, frost might move in and harm me before I have a chance to bloom.  There are times when we are unsure.  These times are also important.  If I wait too long, I might miss my chance to greet the year’s first bees and hover flies.  The dance of lion and lamb that is early spring is a dance I’ve tried my best to master through the millennia, but much as I’d like to, I don’t always get it right.  Still, there is great wonder in the uncertainty of the dance itself.  I am among the first flowers, so I know I serve a great purpose – to splash color against the backdrop of sleepy decay.  I often imagine us spring flowers as a group of coffee drinking elders that shuffle into March in our bathrobes and slippers, surrounded by the drab wallpaper of winter, wondering if we set the alarm too early – or too late. But, when we time it right, we shed these outer layers like a surprising flash mob, revealing resplendent green, yellow and white bodysuits, pirouetting adagio in perfect rhythm with the sun’s arcing east-west path. 

But again I ask: is the wonder of a daffodil only a springtime phenomenon?  I worry, what of summer, when the shimmering flower of my glory will fade into an anonymous blanket of green?  What of autumn, when my visible body falls away all together?  Will you remember my dance as I fall into renewed slumber?  Will I believe in my own beauty the way I so confidently do today?  Isn’t every day a day of wonder and splendor?  These are my questions as I emerge out there, beyond the window.  I imagine many of you might awaken in the mornings and the springtimes of your lives with the same questions!  So I ask of you: please, see beauty not only when I flower, but also when I am but another splash of green in a crowded garden.  See beauty in me as I droop and fade in autumn, seemingly dull against a sea of orange and red.  Please don’t forget that there is greatness in my underground winter rest, though I might be as far from your mind as I am from your eyes.  Know that I am with you, even then, in this world of wonder.

Bulb to stalk.  Stalk to bloom.  Bloom to seed.  Seed to bulb.  The four seasons of my life.  Each with its unique beauty.  Each with its bumbling, effervescent wonder.  Each day a bloom, or a dream of blooms yet to come.  May we be so.