I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
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 waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I learned this poem by William Wordsworth when I was in high school, and it comes to mind every spring when daffodils carpet the Island. What a sight they are, no less inspiring to my eye and heart than they were to Wordsworth.
Jennie Gadowski attended the Dukes County Fire Training Council celebration for its 2025–26 Firefighter I/II class on April 4. Her granddaughter, Jennelle Gadowski, was one of five West Tisbury Fire Department graduates. The others were Alex Bortolotto, Josh Emin, Theodore Pearson, and Erik VanLandinham. Congratulations to you all.
Don’t forget that the library will be closed on Monday, April 20, for Patriot’s Day. There will be free soup and bread lunches from 11:30 to 1 on the weekdays during the spring school vacation, beginning Tuesday, April 21. All are welcome.
Some of the other library programs include learning how to cane or rush a chair seat this Friday, April 17, at 4 pm. Bring your chair to restore. Sign up at wt_mail@clamsnet.org.
Saturday at 1 pm, there will be a screening for families of “Flow,” in recognition of Earth Month. At 3:30 pm, Jennelle Gadowski will advise about “Emergency Financial Preparedness,” how to protect your finances before, during, and after an emergency.
Sunday at 1 pm, come to a concert of traditional music from Venezuela and Columbia.
There will be a Gnome and Fairy Home-Building program for kids on Tuesday from 3:30 to 4:30 pm. Building materials will be provided, and participants are welcome to bring some of their own: bark, shells, seed pods, feathers, twigs, moss, lichen, small pieces of driftwood.
Wednesday at 3:30 pm, kids are invited to the Tisbury School gymnasium for the “Wild World of Animals” show, sponsored by the M.V. Library Association.
Thursday, 9:30 to 10:30 am, families are invited to the library for pancakes and cartoons.
Celebrate Earth Month on Saturday, April 18, with a beach cleanup from 10 am to noon, then head to the M.V. Museum for a conservation festival till 3 pm. For information: vineyardconservation.org.
Linda Hearn and I had another art outing to see the “30 x 30” show at Featherstone, a tribute to the 30 years since Mary Stevens and Virginia Besse opened the gallery at the Stevens’ farm. Artists across the Island produced images on a 30- by 30-inch canvas.
Work ranged from traditional paintings, photographs, and mixed-media pieces to Debra and Robert Yapp’s stone-and-driftwood framed mirror, Deb Edmunds’ garden gate setting for the goldfinch she carved and painted, Scott Bliss’ tree with beach glass leaves, and nonrepresentational paintings by Harriet Bernstein, Brique Garber, and Ellike Edelman. You had to look carefully to appreciate the three-dimensional collaged flowers and butterflies on the painted surface of Deborah Black’s “Joyful Transformation,” and delineating Daisy Lifton’s layered-paper horses. Several artists added texture using transparent and opaque papers. One artistic family showed their work together; Traeger DiPietro, his wife Lauren Evans, and Lauren’s children, Nico and Marina. I wish I could mention every exhibitor.
Linda and I had gone especially to see “The Wave,” a felted wool “painting” by her daughter, Laura Hearn. Recalling Hokusai’s famous 1831 woodcut, “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” it is spectacular.
I just learned that Kay Mayhew died on April 12. My colleagues at The Times and I all thought we would have more time to send her notes and cards, to let her know what her stalwart presence meant to us all. Knowing Kay, she would have hated any fuss. She is with her Donald again, and I wish them peaceful rest. My condolences to their family, and to the lifetime readers of her Tisbury columns.
We haven’t completely lost Kay. Her years of Tisbury columns can still be read and enjoyed. She can still transport us to a time and place she recorded, week after week, year after year. That is the gift a writer leaves behind.