The official classes of narcissus include: trumpet, large-cup, small-cup, double, triandrus, cyclamineus, jonquilla, tazetta, poeticus, and species (wild) varieties. The least hardy are the tazettas, which include the paperwhites, but they can easily be forced indoors. With the exception of a few species types which are only dependable to Zone 6, most daffodils prove remarkably hardy--considering that they originated in the Mediterranean countries!
An elderly woman for whom I worked years ago would insist on calling them "lilies." I thought that an eccentric and individual quirk until I discovered that daffodils had, in the past, been commonly known as Lent Lilies. I wrote this poem, called Lent Lilies, for her.
Lilies, she calls them,
Not the white and formal funereals,
But the golds that flare on April hills,
The daring, dancing daffodils.
Death sets his flowers in stiff array,
In careful, inevitable bouquet.
"The end, the end," they croon
In hard, hypnotic tune.
The daffodils laugh, dance,
Curtsy with gypsy impudence.
"No end, no end. We've lived
And lived, and live again.
Death's the fool in any garden;
Ask any of our brothers who
Burned the night
Outside a Judean tomb.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Go To Page: 1 2
