The Beauty of Dandelions
Splayed hands of evergreen trees
encourage wind
across an acre of rural land
land marked by a phrase, unknowingly borrowed:
“God’s Little Acre”
The land left handprints on her body
in ways she had not counted on
a place to turn when life pulls a fast one
:::
Beyond Great Lakes basin
past remote borders of northwestern towns
to
a place where high-rises spy on tricky
sidewalks, lovers and artists drunk
on myths hemmed in by concrete and shadows
of office towers hungry for exact change
to a brick home where steel
scarecrows stand knee-high
in grassland where carbon-copy homes
nudge one another for elbow room and
garages rush to greet pedestrians
a day’s work crumbles, falls away
:::
She has long forgotten the pleasure of snapping
peas from a vine, cracking open a pre-dinner sweet
long forgotten the feel of
her palm against her father’s
dusty work boots, rubbing leather to a dull shine
boots dropped on the doorstep of the Salvation
Army thrift store the day
he left town
Jack pines stand at attention
brave the sharp edges of summer
:::
A welcome mat second-guesses her footsteps
she plucks a handful of stars, slings them
to the ground
they chime, shuffle, burn out, become
stepping stones alongside a highway
where
bulrushes, as tall as children
fall in line, their reeds like limbs
quelled in marshy ditches
:::
Imagination tangled in yellow sunlight
catches the bough of a spruce tree
:::
She wanders the property line
catches answers mid-air they
glow like fireflies lured into glass at dusk
left under the sun, they lose light
suffocate
a footpath through cedars to
a gnarled pear tree barren
untended raspberry bushes
a lively strawberry patch
to where
her mother’s knees bent before a flower garden
workshop hands planting
prayers alongside rows of portulaca
nursing trumpeted petunias in soil unable
to nourish
she curses
the beauty of dandelions
From “Something to Hide” a chapbook of poetry; finalist for Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award, 2003.