Marching Orders
by
Suzanne Comer Bell

There was a time when I would take a Little Tykes hammer
and tap the first blades of green back into the ground,
the sign of spring being much too soon for me,
as I was just getting used to
winter’s bare expanse in my surrounding world. I loved
the tall, slender starkness of tree trunks, 
the spread of silver branches etching form into brand-new form,
each day awaiting a new vision of simplicity that
might catch my eye, its light bright enough to shut out
even a single ray of sunshine, in my well-intentioned mind,
but now, 
it is the viciousness of daffodils that causes me to wince,
unprepared as yet
for the flash of spring to bare its unbuttoned bottom 
and burst into a belly dance. 
I know and welcome its coming, as all must do,
but tell me,
do you not wish for the sight of searing death, when so blanketing
a scene as spring covers the earth, when we must
wave goodbye to winter’s tooth and bone, 
even as we break new ground with laughter soft as leaves?
Tell me, do you not wish for these?
When I told my husband I was writing a poem
about the vicious color of daffodils,
he blurted out,
have you seen the daffodils 
at the edge of the school? It looks like
they’re marching out of the woods to attack, 
all lined up like soldiers, 
coming right up over that hill—
See, I told you daffodils are vicious,
poems sneaking up on you
when you least expect them,
and to think, like any such advances,
they were only following orders. 


© by Suzanne Comer Bell.
Used with the author’s permission.