(inspired by a photo by Kit Sibert)
White dandelions in a field,
a sudden field.
Overnight, an entire company
of dream-addled recruits
has seeped and flowed
from the distant, dark, now-empty hill,
ending here
in the firmly horizontal.
Taking a stand of sorts,
in the stillness they do not, will not, know
as final.
Innocent,
the way they have rounded all their caution
onto their heads,
ready to be taken by the winds.
Tentative
on their spindly stems,
heads showing barely above
the taller grasses they have always so carelessly
blanketed.
Surely
they must be staggering to have walked this far
without moving.
Would seem, the newly-whitened ones,
engaged in a yearly ritual
of disowning
the robust yellow conversations of their ancestry –
(wrong, it turns out).
These dandelions are caught
doing something rarely visible, but not rare,
as the snapshot reveals them poised
in groups of twos and threes, of threes
and fours. . . .
like a musical temperament sketched as a dance.
Exactly that – Listen!
Anita Sullivan
Anita Sullivan writes poetry and prose inspired by hours spent outdoors in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Most recently she has published a second full-length poetry collection 'Original Flamboyance.' She also has four essay collections, a novel and a couple of poetry chapbooks. She volunteers in a local community library.
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