"Come," my mother said, reaching her hand to me. "I'll show you something beautiful." Eagerly I laid aside the doll I was trying to dress and jumped up to take her hand.

"Where are we going?" I asked, skipping beside her.

"You'll see," she said, smiling down at me.

Outside, we followed the sidewalk up Wellington Avenue, past our neighbors' homes. When the sidewalk ended, we trudged up the steep path that led to the top of our Daly City hill.

My mother's strides were long, and I had trouble keeping up. But her excitement propelled me, and with her hand firmly holding mine, my short legs found the strength to keep going.

As we reached the crest of the hill, a chill breeze whipped through my sweater. My mother's breath came in rapid puffs. I was winded too, but took my cue from the pleased smile she wore and knew this was our destination.

"Look!" she exclaimed, letting go of my hand to stretch out her arms in a wide, expansive gesture. "Just look what God created!"

She turned in a slow circle, her face tilted toward the sky. I saw the light in her eyes and felt the excitement in her voice. An awe-inspiring scene stretched before us. Crowning the hill, a mass of yellow daffodils danced to the breeze's secret melody. Mother moved closer to the bobbing sea of flowers and beckoned me to come stand beside her.

With her arm around my shoulders, we gazed out from the top of the hill toward the western horizon. Far below the cliffs and treetops, I could see the glistening Pacific Ocean. Morning sunlight spilled across its surface like tiny diamonds. Beside me, the daffodils waved their golden trumpets at the blue sky, and above me, my mother's voice lifted in dramatic poetry. I felt its resonance tingling through my shoulder where I rested against her ribs, but more than that, I heard the music of the words stirring something deep in my young heart.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud," she began, "That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils." I was accustomed to hearing my mother recite poetry. She'd memorized many poems as a schoolgirl in Arkansas, but this was the first time I'd enjoyed such a perfect illustration of the words spoken.

"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 words moved me. To this day, I can't see a daffodil without remembering this moment on the hilltop, not only the golden flowers and the sparkling sea, but a mother whose love of poetry profoundly affected her child. And when I remember, I sing with the poet, Wordsworth, "...then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils."