Poetry Friday: A Poem For A Weed

Today a poem about dandelions. Its high dandelion season here at our house, all the roadsides and wilder lawns dotted with yellow and the air heavy with their sweet nectar scent.

 Weeds are in the eye of the beholder. I've never lived in a house with a manicured lawn so anything that flowered was allowed and maybe even encouraged. All things have their place, especially in a wilder kind of horticulture.

Dandelions are an exotic, invasive but they have taken hold in the hearts of all children. Who doesn't have heartwarming memories of playing with them as little tikes? I love watching my boys play with them and I wonder if my sisters think of me like I think of them when I see them start to bloom every spring.

So, Lockbox, Foxy, Song, and Doubleddog.....here's to the sisterhood! This one's for you.


Dandelion Season

As a girl I loved the scent of dandelions
A warm smell of sunshine in honey sauce.
Sniffing the blossoms was a kind of food
To my sisters and myself, a conjuror's dessert
We played that the milky sap was Elmer's 
Our fingers tacky from the bitter, gloss.
We tore open innumerable flowers,
Beads of white swelling from the stems
We would squat in the sand on the driveway
And squint our eyes fiercely at each other
Smearing the flowers across our cheeks,
Leaving pale yellow racing strips behind.
We braided the stems into crowns to wear
And learned that dandelion stems are variable
Sometimes stiff and no longer than your thumb
Sometimes long and willowy and braid-able on and on
Around the head until your crown grows fat.
One time I left my diadem on the dashboard
Of our car and found the next day that magically
It had turned into a delicate, brittle circlet
Of wishing puffs....