My friend Barbara Kulicke loved to paint flowers. Her garden was lush with variety, and she would spend hours sitting on her small chair weeding the beds.

She is gone now these past few years, her garden beds full of weeds and only the heartiest of flowers make it up to the sun. The daffodil being one. Abundant and determined they spring up out of the earth eager to reach the sun and thrive for a brief moment in time.

to me the daffodil is the flower for Aries
yellow like the sun
fire element
so many layers of color
texture
then the stamen
first flower of spring
pushing up through late snow
bent double in spring rain
a brief lifespan
and then gone
like you and me

Barbara loved to paint on slate, the foundation of this ridge and valley area of New Jersey. She gifted me one of her paintings, and when a few daffodils suddenly opened, I lay them across her vision of this amazing flower and called her memory back into the world.