The daffodil, like many other flowers, is thought to bring happiness into one's life. Looking at this flower in a more symbolic manner, the daffodil represents the life that Trethewey and her mother has had to endure. Although the daffodil is only mentioned in one poem, many poems throughout Native Guard illustrate how the life of the daffodil is directly related and compared to Natasha Trethewey and her mother. The order in which the poems are mentioned is also significant; they demonstrate the progression stages of the two lives mentioned and the devastation that is brought when a life is lost. At the beginning of the book in the poem “Genus Narcissus” the daffodil is being compared to Trethewey as a child, because they are both in the beginning stages of life. Comparable to the flower Trethewey would be considered a new bloom sprouting in the early spring. “The road I walked home from school was dense with trees and shadows, creek-side, and lit by yellow daffodils, early blossom” (1-3).They are both innocent beings beginning life and Natasha is awaiting the chance to endure the happiness that life has to bring. Both Natasha and the flowers are considered gifts to her mother, therefore she sees herself as being one with the flower, “Childish vanity. I must have seen in them some measure of myself- the slender stems, each blossom a head lifted up” (13-15). Being a young child Natasha did not know that the flowers given to her mother as a small gift would one day represent the bruises and sudden death her mother would quickly endure.

The transition has now begun, the daffodils are starting to wither and the dying petals are a representation of the emotional and physical abuse Trethewey and her mother are encountering. Like a flower that has been tossed around and uncared for Trethewey’s mother has been severely abused. In the poem “What is Evidence”,