Artwork: Fernand Leger, Two Women Holding Flowers, 1954
The first in a set of poems entitled Lovers’ Quarantine
In ‘Lovers’ Quarantine’ I explore different responses to quarantine. Here, the natural periodic growth of daffodils is mirrored in the ‘burrowing’ silent accumulation of romantic thought between separated lovers.
by Fred Baxter
There are daffodils
Growing from your windowsill,
Bursting through its placid soil
After months of gritty toil;
Creakily they burrow,
Stretching out behind the furrows
Of the windowpane.
And when ice froze breath mid-air to feign
Winter, I knew still they
Rummaged, for they worked their way
Soundlessly, turning over the earth
As they went. Yawning off their frosty birth
And turning to look, I saw a world
Wrapped up in silk and furled
Around my feet; yellowing
It sent stars uprooting,
A thousand blazings
In its sinewy earth’s lacing.
