Daffodils

The day the war against Iraq begins

I’m photographing the yellow daffodils

With their outstretched arms and ruffled cups

Blowing in the wind of Jesus Green

Edging the lush grassy moving river

Along with the swans and ducks

Under a soft March Cambridge sky

Embellishing the earth like a hand

Starting to illustrate a children’s book

Where people in light clothes come out

To play, to frisk and run about

With their lovers, friends, animals, and children

As down every stony back road of history

They’ve always done in the peaceful springs

—Which in a sense is also hell because

The daffodils do look as if they dance

And make some of us in the park want to dance

And breathe deeply and I know that

Being able to eat and incorporate beauty like this

I am privileged and by that token can

Taste pain, roll it on my tongue, it’s good

The cruel wars are good the stupidity is good,

The primates hiding in their caves are very good,

They do their best, which explains poetry.

What explains poetry is that life is hard

But better than the alternatives,

The no and the nothing. Look at this light

And color, a splash of brilliant yellow

Punctuating an emerald text, white swans

And mottled brown ducks floating quietly along

Whole and alive, like an untorn language

That lacks nothing, that excludes

Nothing. Period. Don’t you think

It is our business to defend it

Even the day our masters start a war?

To defend the day we see the daffodils?