REMAINING BEAUTY


Late yesterday, after wheeling back and forth with barrows full of split wood from the chopping stump to the new stack - a routine that gets pretty monospective - I finally noticed that all along I'd been being careful about the cluster of ivory and gold daffodils beside the big rock in the shadow of the old oak. All day I'd been edging carefully between them and the wheelbarrow without really thinking about it, and now that I'd stopped my routine I looked at them with eyes I could use for new things and saw that the blossoms actually glowed in the slanting light from the clouded setting sun.

There were a couple dozen flowers on the cluster, but the stalks of half of them had been crimped and toppled by the strong winds. And though those blossoms themselves were down in the dirt, they glowed just as though they still stood unbowed. I could not but be moved by that kind of character, so I rescued them rather than have the wind keep rubbing them in the dirt until they were rags. I cut the bent stalks just above the crimps so that they could stand, then brought them inside to put in a vase in the kitchen where they could shine in the window. As if in thanks, they filled the room with that fragrance that every spring takes me somewhere I know so well and love so strongly, yet have never visited but by the grace of flowers.