On a lone grassy hillside, a single
stalk of a flower blew in the light breeze with a pale sun overhead.
Its petals shifted with the fluttering wind, as the Sun smiled down
on it.
What a beautiful creation, such hue and splendor, facing up to me, needing me, drinking life from my limitless warmth. If only I had witnessed its birth. The moment it flowered must have been glorious. I lament that I missed even a moment, and now I vow, to watch it for the remainder of its celebration.
With the Sun newly risen, it beamed down onto the bright blossom. It watched a bee fly into the opening, collecting the nectar for itself, and the pollen for its host's future endeavors.
Mister Bee, take your time, gather everything you need. Though it be warm, someday soon a winter storm will make you wish for stored honey.
So hummed the Sun from its vantage point, still early in the morning. As the earth rotated in its course, the Sun saw the flower drawing away from it.
I can't control the passing of time, nor the rotation of the Earth. Don't worry, I'll ask my cousins, the stars, to watch over you at night. Though you and I must part, I eagerly await the moments we will spend together, when I rise over your pasture again.
The next day it stormed. The Sun struggled to push aside the crowds crying, I'm coming. Don't fret.
It saw brief glimpses of the green sward through rifts in the clouds, but no matter how it pulled and shoved the Sun couldn't break through to rescue the flower from the onslaught. At last the it demurred, yielding in the fight with the clouds. Yet the next day they had passed on, and it gazed upon the flower once more.
For weeks the two passed the days together, each gazing into the golden face of the other.
One day the Sun saw a man passing through the grass. It saw the man wandering this way and that, as if untethered. The Sun yelled, Beware, do not step there, on my friend.
It saw him throw himself down in a heap at the foot of a nearby tree and then spring up as if stung. But he flung his arms out wide, an encompassing gesture of astonishment, and the Sun followed his gaze. A whole host of flowers, all the same shape and hue, flowed down the hill to a lake. The Sun observed the man. He gazed transfixed at the scene as if it were paradise. The Sun watched him sway as if in a dance with a grand company.
Did the man remain, or travel onward. The Sun knew not. For though the man's vision was noteworthy the Sun saw no reason to abandon its friend for a crowd. What need of thousands when one was worthy? It took no further notice of the other flowers, and returned its pensive gaze to its first acquaintance. It heeded no other sight.
I don't need them, only a single friend.
Other sights didn't impinged upon the Sun's focus. It sought to brighten the skies with ever more valuable views. During the next rainstorm, the Sun strove with great effort and broke through the clouds, scattering them left and right. A dazzling rainbow flowed, bedazzling any viewers.
Then one day the Sun looked down in panic. It couldn't find its flower. It saw the ground covered with oblong shapes in hues of red, orange, and brown.
Cry aloud, sun of the Earth, for you and I are alike in complexion.
A cool wind shifted the fallen leaves, and from under one poked the flower's yellow corona.
Please wind, blow, said the Sun, many, many times. But the wind didn't move stir. Eventually the Sun grew content with just a partial glimpse of its friend.
Then the Sun visited the flower less and less. It saw the flower shiver in the cooling breeze, but it couldn't' stay. Day after day it was drawn away around the Earth. It worried for the health of the flower, who seemed sickly in the waning of the year.
Be patient, for I will return again, and in the months beyond we will spend the long lazy, hazy hours together again.
One day, not many weeks later the Sun returned only to find a smooth expanse of snow where the flower had been. Though it had accepted the other setbacks, the inconveniences, and the diminished time with grace, this time the Sun was inconsolable. It called to the moon, and hid its shining face. But the moon had to move on. And the Sun called to the clouds and let them roam about, but eventually they wandered away.
For a time the Sun tried to turn away from the spot of its former friend, but eventually it relented, gazing again on the meadow, first as the snow receded, then as it turned to mud, and finally as green shoots pushed through the dark soil.
As the Sun drifted lazily overhead, and the bees buzzed again in the meadow, it gazed down on that forlorn location, and saw again six yellow lobes around a golden trumpet. Intently it looked, at first uncertain of the flower's identity. Then with certainty it cried out.
You've returned, have re-arisen from your home underground, pushing aside the snow and soil.
The Sun celebrated joyfully, and it shone brightly down on the surrounding fields.
I know this, we shall be together for many years, you and I, though we must enjoy our hibernation separately.
And the daffodil silently smiled back up the Sun.
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