The dandelion opens as the king of the garden, the bright yellow sun in his own green sky.
By mid-May the garden was a sea of white-puffed clocks, the wind whispering unmeasured time to the grass who existed every moment and no more - happy in that fraction of time we call "now." I would watch the seeds drift upon their natural parachutes, travelling without notion of place. Yet it was the way nature is, choreographed chaos, everything set in motion for creation to bloom.
The dandelion was a radiant sun, bringing memories of the golden foods mamma put their petals in. I could see them in the way we do with beloved recollections, seeing without any image at all, only an infusion of joy. There were the breads, the risottos, accompanied by dandelion greens - as salad in early spring or blanched and cooked with garlic and chilli as the season matured. We loved them in our garden, the wild garlic too, for they grew in such abundance of their own accord. Bees loved the flowers; birds loved the seeds. Just as with the blackberry bush, nature has her quiet way of giving if we are willing to see the gifts she bestows.
The humble dandelion is the gold amid the green, a little sunshine close to the earth, born to shine. It has a beauty equal to any other, with leaves to fill the salad bowl and seeds for the bellies of the birds. It is the clock of my childhood daydreams, the watercolour of long ago joy, as magical as any fairy wand.
When the dandelion bloomed Frank had inwardly smiled, he was in no hurry to pluck it. Every day on his way in from work he would glance at the yellow flower, as yellow as his morning butter, before opening the door to rest on his couch. Then one evening, as the days waned and the temperature cooled, he noticed it had become a fluffy sphere and he stopped. Finally it was a dandelion clock. He picked it and took in a deep breath. With each puff from his lungs he counted forwards by an hour. By "five o'clock" the stalk was empty and the seeds were in the wind, delicately carried away in the late summer air.
Sarah rubbed the petals of the dandelion between her fingers watching her skin take on the sunny hue. She looked like she'd spent the afternoon painting instead of lying on her back in the meadow - perfecting the art of emptying her head. There was only so much trigonometry she could take before she needed a wide open sky and plants under her back. She could hear Mom already, "What did you do?! Waste the afternoon? You must study!" She let her breath out slowly and rose to her feet, wiping the plant fragments from her pants. Though she'd have to face the music, she felt better for the brief escape.
The dandelion has a boldness that Orin just didn't care for. It was too tall, too yellow and in the wrong damn place. It was his lawn and what on earth did that flower think it was doing there? He wanted green, he'd planned for green and he was going to get perfect, even, uniform green. In two strides he was at the brash flower and he leaned down faster than a clockwork soldier to pluck it. As the stem snapped, juicy and dripping, he cursed himself. Beneath that soil were roots, now he'd have to fetch his shovel and make even more mess in his otherwise manicured lawn.
Between the pages of Mia's book is a dandelion, pressed and flat. It has left a yellow stain that brushes over the ink like a gentle stroke of water colour. The petals are still sunshine in delicate lobes and the stalk still has the greenness of spring.
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