Resilient 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. Hence, the simplicity we once had as children here becomes like a daffodil, symbol of renewal that one can be freed from the poverty of self-centeredness by embracing hope and love again.