King Alfreds, First Light

The King Alfred daffodils lean into the light.

Pink! says the light, and Orange!

The sunlight opens like a speaker, with jokes.

The daffodils tolerate him. In an hour

he will shine them an earnest yellow.

And so they lean--how far I never noticed,

like fishing poles with yellow lures

or cups on sticks dipping for yellow in a well,

like bugles blowing after a yellow note.

Blowing for the forsythia, the crocus.

Early spring lets in a spill of blue, a dab of white,

squills, snowdrops--but only as counterpoint,

only to invent a purer yellow.

Yellow that aches with its lack of irony.

Yellow that is more a belief in color

than the color itself, fall's dying

muted golds purified and resurrected.

What endures after the winter is yellow.

Why can't my daffodils be more like the tulips?

Late-risers!--agnostics standing straight up,

pleased with any color so long as it can go to a party,

lipstick reds and cocktail-bar purples, tulips in green throats,

tulips sporting frilly petals, we're talking tulips. 

People say the daffodils are happy. They're wrong.

Just look at how they crane their yellow selves,

straining on arched green stems, searching, wounded, soulful--

kings of trying to understand.

This poem appeared in Nimrod International Literary Journal, vol. 49, no. 2 ("The Healing Arts," Spring/Summer 2006).