Daffodils while Spring Still Sleeps (Yellow Whispers in the Silence)

 
We returned home from New England last night, later than we expected. Airplane flat tires and lengthened layovers were the cause for our sheer exhaustion at our Bakersfield arrival.

I might have blamed the heaviness of my heart for the tire mishap.

I have been happy in my life here in Bakersfield, but the entire time I was away, my heart felt very much at home wherever it found itself. Much more than it has felt, ever, in all the years I have been here in California's Central Valley.

This morning I was greeted by a dove, cooing her welcome back rather than welcome home. I smiled and nodded to her, feeling as if I had left the warmth of my chilly, forsythia covered nest. The grey clouds tiptoed past, afraid to disturb my sadness with too much light from the sun.

An hour later I sipped coffee at my desk and watched the life on Alta Vista Drive bubble awake. I smiled inspite of myself as the familiar tunes of early-in-the-day played its tunes.

I had so much to say and yet nothing silence continued to fall.

And more silence.

And more silence.

I wrote a poem. A short poem.

And as the day wore on there was more silence.

So many stories wanted to be told through me but I stubbornly held tight to them, not wanting to let them out.

I could tell the story of Samuel, reading Emily Dickinson poetry to a room of adults with quite a bit of panache.

I could tell the story of playing in the Dickinson's family yard, including a hoopfest between Samuel and Ann.

I could tell the story of forsythia, blossoming. I could tell the story of second springs. I could tell the story of Samuel finding everything remarkable. I could tell the story of seeing an East Coast sunrise and the time change transition being smoother than imaginable.

I could tell the story of the GPS with personality and its sing-song of electric avenue or the romances of so many 19th Century heroes. I could tell the story of reconnections and accents and Red Sox fever.

So rather than allow them to stay bottled up in a startling traffic jam of memories, I made a list and will draw, each one, from my prompt box and tell each one, day by day, without concern over which story goes first.

They are all ripe for the telling.

No more silence. Daffodils bloomed in New Hampshire while Spring slept, still - yellow whispers in the silence.