04.10.16

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

From the time you spot the yellow bud, growing by itself out of the cold earth, it seems to take forever until she sports her yellow sunbonnet.  But once she and her friends emerge, they wriggle and dance in the spring winds, and shake off Winter together.  Their lightness and brightness brings such delight.  Even as they begin to fade, and get all crusty and crepe paper crinkly, I think of them as a bunch of old friends, thoroughly enjoying the company of one another, reminiscing about when they were very young, and grateful to welcome another new season.

It has been a stellar unseasonably warm week-end and it felt like the whole valley was on holiday.  Colleen and I took a walk on the big sandy lake bed in Somers with the snow-capped Mission peaks glistening in the sunshine.  An enormously long and wide log was the only disruption of the broad expanse of sand, and a group of families and friends had gathered there for an afternoon picnic.  Dogs chased sticks, a half-dozen toddlers filled their pails with sand, and young children ran through the shallow water with their jeans rolled up.  I could have still been on the Hawaiian beach.  Back at home, I sat on the dock with my book while the kitties sun bathed, and watched the skiffs of breeze move the top of the water in different directions.  The Space Station has been going by just before bedtime, and we’ve stood on the dock with warm currents of air swirling around us, under stars which fall into the lake, and the new crescent moon.  Daffodil days indeed!