White Daisy Passing

The title of a lovely little ditty by Rocky Votolato.....one verse goes like this:

Passing white daisies, taking turns
Close the door walk to the street
Catching raindrops on your tongue
And for a minute it all stops
But it won’t last man, just a passing moment gone

This morning I spotted the first daisy bloom of the summer. I always think that there is nothing but happiness to be found in a daisy's sunny face. How could you react with anything but a smile when meeting a daisy?

In the language of flowers, a daisy symbolizes innocence, loyal love, I'll never tell, and purity. I just love folk tales on flowers, they add such a rose-coloured romance to them.

The name of a daisy is thought to have sprung from 'day's eye', because of the bloom's habit of opening only during the day. Chaucer poetically called the flower the 'eye of the day'. I guess the songwriter has the metaphor to a T when he talks about passing moments gone. But, there is so much good in those moments.

Daisies bring so many memories (ahem, moments) of growing up in my mother's garden. She had a sea of white daisies that would bloom profusely all throughout the summer. And summers themselves bring back memories of laid back, endless days of picnics, kittens, playing dress up with my sisters, treehouses, playhouses, 'grocery shopping' in the garden for fresh produce, my craft box, singing on the riding lawn mower (thinking no one can hear, of course), wiener roasts, and just getting dirty and not having a care in the world.

Oddly enough, I never did make daisy chains out of those daisies. I never learned how. But I would pick oodles of daisy bouquets for the playhouse. And, as every little girl plays the 'he loves me, he loves me not' game, in which petals sacrifice themselves for the sake of unrequited love, I too made play out of those little happy eyes of the day. Shakespeare would love it.