Dandelion

 

Dandelion

In my garden

I’m growing myself.

I’d like to think

I ‘m the fetching amber canna, posed

behind her seductive dark leaf-fan

or the elegant gold rose,

taking the breath, her head heavy

with sun-gilded petals.

But I know I 'm

a weed, a once yellow, fat

dandelion going to seed.

or the shrub, perhaps, thorny and lank,

set scowling beneath the low window

throwing dagger arms at all comers,

purple and stark as an old bruise

against the buff brick,

while all the long hours

my black-eyed daughter Susan

fills up the hot summer with her profligate flowers,

and the quarrelsome yarrow and ember-red poppies

pick up their heads like a litter of celadon pups

thrown from my loamy botanical womb

tumbling in serious play

across my snarled roots.

All  thought is drowned in the sunsound 

of ponderous bees'

slow dancing on the mumbling air,

while down in the far corner

the dandelion goes white

and her uncoupling seed flies into the wind,

from here clear to

anywhere.

December 2010

Linked to real toads
Open Link Monday

March 12,2012

Photo: Yarrow, poppies & salvia, by joy ann jones