Daffodils and the Outward Eye

I was in college when Gaylord Nelson began the first Earth Day. I remember clearly sitting in the sun near the student union and thinking that life was good indeed after a long Wisconsin winter. My daffodils this year inspire the same thought; life is good indeed when spring returns after months of snow and cold.

Knowing full well that few people are interested in health issues, I'll just say that I think my retinal tear is on the mend. I have two doctors at UW Madison working with me, one an associate professor, the other a resident. The surgeon did his thing on Monday afternoon, then took off for a conference, leaving the follow up care to a resident who is anxious to do everything right. I have to stifle the urge to think of this nice looking and ernest young doctor (who graduated from Harvard and Columbia) as a cast member of Greys Anatomy. I keep telling myself, he is only fascinated by my retina, and that I should keep my eye on the bouncing gas bubble. I'm supposed to keep my head at a 45 degree angle, to keep the bubble pressing on the repaired area of my retina, and I mostly do, but my neck is getting really tired. I am cultivating a thoughtful pose with my head resting on my left hand. Reading is slow, since the book or newspaper needs to be held up in the air in front of my good right eye, so I am burning my way through the New Yorker podcasts that have been gathering dust on my hard drive. I haven't tried painting or drawing yet. I'm trying to just relax and let the eye heal, but I'm not the most patient of women.

Daffodils
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.