Summer Daisies

I’m writing this far from Wakefield, visiting friends and family in the old country. Adjusting to the time difference, in the hours when I cannot sleep, I walk around the Wakefield garden in my head, communing with the flowers that may bloom while I’m away.

This is the time of year when the shasta daisies line the verandah. I’m hoping they’ll still be in bloom when I get back. Not my favourite flower by a long shot, but nonetheless I find myself missing them, just as in winter I long for their return.

In these dark days, I dream
a drift of daisies by the porch.
Where winter’s roof-snow mounds
its muffled shock of peace

There are no stories buried in this snow,
Only longed-for summer flowers.

There is something about their cheerful faces that can’t help but brighten up dark days.

And the days are still very dark. The situation in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, the political situations in many countries occupy my head. The problems are so complex, the solutions far from easy. At times, I feel a complete sense of despair.

You learn little by little that to speak out loud of your hopelessness, invites others to rush in and tell you what to do… send money, protest, stand in solidarity. I agree that each small act does help to make a difference, to shine a light on the suffering. But it’s not those acts that make me feel better, rather, it’s the happy faces of the flowers in the garden that bring me peace.

Even the dog, a seventies bartender, resting his elbows
on the railing, keeps his counsel, knows better than to signal
summer thoughts out loud to neighbours passing by.

I dream the daisies’ innocence.

Years ago at school, recess was spent sitting on the playing field making daisy chains. I was good at it. Not a popular child, the daisy chains became my currency for negotiating friendships.

Scattered stars across the playing fields,
a battleground where I sat alone,
splitting stems to thread flower after flower.
Wilted chains. Peace offerings for maybe friends.

Drinking my morning coffee on the verandah at home, I view each flower up close. None of the flowers are perfect. And yet, in their own way they are, each perfectly fulfilling their destiny. And when I see them together from afar they are like one being, one community, they are perfection. They are what brings me hope, what brings me peace.