Poetry
Paperwhites
Feeling the pressure
Like dragons’ claws, they clutch the soil,
scraping their way past flattened granite,
pushing into the pale light seeping through the eucalyptus
and pines and into my kitchen window. Forced into being
in a time that was never their own.
Ancient tendons, pointed ribs of green,
fluorescent pencil nibs curving into the sun.
What eon do they think they’re in?
Lukewarm waterings. Six-inch pots.
A taste of the wild, tamed into modern existence,
pressured into sprouting,
purely for
our human joy.
Narcissus papyraceus, or paperwhites, as they are more commonly known, arrived in our kitchen windows via Greece, Portugal and other Mediterranean climes, where they are native bulbs. Often forced into sprouting in sunny indoor spots this time of year, they truly are of the daffodil family and they naturally bloom in the spring, not the winter.
I was eyeing my newly-planted bulbs yesterday while washing up the dinner dishes and was struck by how much they look like dragons’ claws fighting their way up through…
