Dandelions

After the cling of roots and then the “pock” when they gave way the recoil up the hand was a small shock of emptiness beginning to expand. Milk frothing from the stems. Leaves inky green and spiked. Like blissed-out childhood play turned mean they snarled in tangled curls on our driveway. It happens still. That desolating falling shudder inside and then our neighborhood seems only sprawling loops...like the patterns eaten on driftwood: even the home where I grew up (its smell of lingering wood-smoke and bacon grease) seems just a shell of lathe and paper. But this strange release follows: this tinge like silver and I feel the pull of dirt again, sense mist uncurling to reveal no architecture hidden behind the world except the stories that we make unfolding: as if our sole real power were the power of children holding this flower that is a weed that is a flower.