Daffodils

The Heart's Capacity to Heal

A slow and sullen sadness

Crawls in on hands and knees,

A hollow hardened madness,

Pursues me, steadily. 

Love lost from ages past,

Would that it would end;

It haunts, and will always last.

Yet follows me, my friend. 

“Away!” I shout through tears,

“Leave me, do not return!

Go haunt some other’s years!”

But sorrow stays; it burns.

Then I turn, see her face,

A sweet and dimpled girl,

Teaching me in embrace

To love this blessed pearl.

Again, and ever still,

She smiles in memory;

Oh, gentle daffodil,

Enrich 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 . 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.