Daffodils
I hunker down, and see the daffodils
At eye-level, with the light coming through them.
It has happened once before.
I am being born. There is yellow light,
Indefinable, but absolutely pure,
Irradiating everything – maybe a vein or two,
My mother’s or my own, the yolk of an egg
Or a streak of red in a bloodshot eyeball –
Either way, the world in its primary state
Being given. Ever afterwards
Yellow is my colour. And it multiplies
Endlessly. But nothing is the same.
The Spring comes in. Again it is making windows
Of itself, to be seen but not seen through.
.
by Harry Clifton
from The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass
publisher Bloodaxe, Newastle, 2012