It might be too early for many people around the Northern Hemisphere, but in California, Spring is here, full blown Spring, full of flowers and sunshine. It might seem a unforgivable cliche to suggest we write poems to Spring, but all cliches have their basis in true emotion, and nothing makes a heart swell with happiness more than the release of winter’s clutches into Spring. So let’s indulge ourselves.
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth is the quintessential poem of Spring. Some people think this poem is called “Daffodils” but it has no true title, other than its first line. Especially for me, as I love daffodils, this poem has all the elements of romance, beauty, glad language, and even, in the last stanza, the note of loneliness and retreat so necessary to an artist’s live. I offer it to you here entirely.
by William Wordsworth
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
What wealth the show to me had brought:
And dances with the daffodils.
Your prompt today is to write a poem to Spring. Let yourself go; indulge in happiness, in feelings of relief, pleasure, simplicity. If you feel like rhyming, go for it. We are so cynical in our modern complexity, so doubting in our rejection of beauty for beauty’s sake. Let yourself write a poem with butterflies or rainbows, with trees blossoming, with sunshine and promise.
If you want an extra challenge, spin the poem at the end inwardly — what is it that you fear about winter, about darkness that haunts you until Spring comes with the promise of a better day? What “vacant or pensive mood” is overcome for you when you think of a beautiful image, remember beautiful music?
Have fun with pure poetic pleasure today. And, don’t forget to turn your clocks ahead tonight, spring forward into the light!
Cupertino Poet Laureate 
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