Guest Poem by Jan FitzGerald

Jan FitzGerald’s poems have appeared in numerous NZ, USA and UK literary journals, including Landfall, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Essential New Zealand Poems, Atlanta Review, One Magazine, The Loch Raven Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Voegelin View, The London Magazine, Allegro, Orbis, Acumen, and The High Window. Her fifth poetry book was publised in 2025. Jan lives and works as an artist in Napier, New Zealand: 'Poetry is who I am, art is what I do.' This poem is from Acumen 113.

Daffodil Bulbs

I could stare at these tubs of dirt all day,
waiting for the miracle.

This is where I buried them,
swaddled in their papery skins

now wintering in a secret hideaway
like swollen nodes of sleep.

I envy their dark cocoons of privacy.

One more change of season
and these earthlings from inner space

will send up green antennae.
For now, inside each one, a mothership is working –

taking on nutrients, storing energy,
producing offspring for renewal –

ready for the final booster thrust.
Little heads of white, orange, yellow,

floating in the air.