Daffodils
Although one of the most common species, my favorite flower is the daffodil. When we lived in Baltimore, they sprouted from every median, every plant bed, every spare inch of soil. On the way to and from school, I often tried to get my mother to pull over so that I could look at them. I was enchanted by their sunny yellows and creamy whites, the frilly skirts sheltered inside six petals, their scalloped hems. The way they tilted side to side in the breeze. The way they looked like tiny mouths announcing the arrival of spring. In elementary school, I would sit on the mulched beds during sunny recess and talk into their tiny mouths, asking how they were doing and imagining that they answered back. I hated the way that they bled clear juice when you cut their stems, and always refused when my father told me to bring some inside. The violence was too much to bear. So I enjoy them now from afar, greeting them with a smile instead of scissors. Wordsworth spoke of them best: “A poet could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company…”
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