Sharon Fagan McDermott: Sharon In Wonderland | Dandelion

It's no use going back to yesterday, because 
          I was a different person then. 
            -- Alice in Alice in Wonderland
 
I’ve now grown small enough
to slip beside the grass blades in the lawn
and near the glassy filigree
of dandelions gone to seed.
 
Twelve dandelions cluster round.
Apostolic. Done. Abundant teachers.
 
I tread gently, attentively:
 
The lacy pappus ring around the flower head.
The stem, a swan’s neck tilting with the breeze.
 
The view from here? A widening
ladder of the leaves. The toothy angles 
of a single edge. Would it hold me 
if I tried to climb?
 
The view from here? A prophecy
of how light, wind, and earth conspire
to play their role in dandelions’ flourishing—
 
—then aids them in their vanishing.
Their final legacy? Whirlwind of seed. 
 
I want to rest my head against that stem 
and hear the final waters flow
from root to petal head. 
 
I want to taste that deep green
leaf that sways beneath this open 
sky, to honor that skeletal second leaf
that looks more like a starling’s wing 
than member of the Aster family. 
 
Drink Me, I was told. And so I have
slaked my thirst on nature’s unending
variety. And done so gratefully.
 
Far above, the seed head’s breathless orb
—a nebulae eviscerated by a breeze.
 
A whispering bridge.
A silver salvo. 
A dawn of stars.                                              

Copyright 2020 Sharon Fagan McDermott