Daffodils

The daffodils on the traffic island
raise their heads towards the skies and listen.

And in the fields at Jodrell Bank dishes large,
small and medium sized turn towards the skies,
whirring motors, clanking frames and listen.

Forty years ago
astronomers held a conversation
(a little one-sided)
with little green men (LGMs),
explained, renamed by scientists
in smart white coats
as pulsars.

Little point in talking to them.

But quietly, sans song or dance, the daffodils
raise their heads towards the skies and listen.

What do they hear?

Standing in the dew of the equinox dawn,
strained to the rays of a closing sun,
their message reads:

"Not this time,
patient friends.
Listen in again next year
and you may just hear the sequence
that eludes the radio telescopes
and little men in long white coats
transmitted loud and clear."

So every spring along the verges,
clumped on banks and garden borders,
in living rooms in pots and vases,
the daffodils
raise their heads towards the skies and listen.