Crushed Gold

Prompt for: April 18, 2016 (fyn)
Subject or Theme: Pick one of these flowers: lilac, daffodil, tulip, hyacinth, or snowdrop. Also pick one of these emotions/states of feeling: frustration, despondency, loneliness, or exhaustion. Use the flower as a metaphor in describing the emotion. (If you do not understand metaphor in poetry, look it up.)
Word(s) to Include: wax, icepick, owl (or any derivatives of these words)
Forbidden Word(s): feel, need, want, down, out, balance, sad (or any derivatives, compound or hyphenations of these words)
Additional Parameters: Minimum of 24 lines, non-rhyming
Remember, do not use forbidden words ANYWHERE, including title or the brief description. CHECK CAREFULLY!!!




Crushed Gold

Daffodil leaves speared up that first warm day
when temps soared to the fifties,
when that orb vanquished roiling clouds,
when color returned and
when a robin searched brittle
winter-grass for bits of food.

Brief respite. Two days later
when waxy stems sported buds,
ice pick spears of sleet turned to snow.
Eight inches of white coated, sent robins under cover
and buried unseen yellow.
World reduced, once more to black and white.

I'd so longed for the daffodils.
One hundred and eighteen minutes into Dr. Zhivago,
he looks through a window, ice crystals melted by warm breath,
and sees a blanket of daffodils swaying, dancing in the breeze.
This was the year when doubled and then re-doubled yellow heads
should be a sunny carpet, but no.

Or perhaps, just not yet.
Capricious, Miss Spring warmed, her breath
melting ice crystals. Buds now ready to burst
and, indeed, they did, for one, brief, sunny moment.
But I was asleep. I woke to new layers the storm
blustering from the west left as final gasp. I hoped.

Heavy, wet, snowman snow if it were December
but April desires no snowmen here, marching along
the yards of our street; mittens to be packed away,
scarves vanquished to back corner of the closet.
April wishes a country two-step, golden skirts twirling.
'One step forward, two steps back' - change the music.

Bold mimicry of recovering friend, manic mayhem becoming
a reoccurring nightmare. Progress measured in tiny steps,
'One step forward, two steps back' as we dance around issues.
Owl-eyed from midnight rants and 'Who do you think you are?'
stuck record skips: I don't know the steps, long for sunny smiles.
Almost a year now, terrifying rather than a victory.

Bipolar, the weather springs from ice to summer, back again,
to leave stalks bent, broken under yet another gasp of icy cold.
Golden heads lie wilting on the greening grass.
Pick the moment, pick the daffodils. Bring their essence inside
to brighten gloomy day. Frustration mounts under onslaught of April
temper tantrums, slammed doors, quiet apologies that wear thin.

Frozen glass, a sheer, high note from shattering.
Frustration blossoms
and yet, and yet, there are new blooms a bud,
waiting in the wings. Change is in the air,
Miss Spring, must settle in for the garden to grow.
Time, only time, will tell.

Next year, perhaps, there will be a yellowed carpet,
bulbs will double regardless.
Next year, perhaps, there will be sunny smiles
replacing thwarted desires, progress.
Yet now, I am like the unpicked daffodil,
crushed beneath the weight of the unrelenting cold.

.