“there shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.”
~celia thaxter
each spring day
we talked about the dandelions
how the seeds
when gently blown
caused new
baby fairies
to fly away and be born
whose job was to
spread more
good and happiness
throughout the world
each day
she carefully brought in
the head or seed
of a dandelion
carrying it
ever so gently
and
delivering it
into my hands
just before class
when at last
at the end of our
kindergarten year
i went to clean out
my little drawer
one tiny blossom
was left
for me
in that safe haven
waiting
to be blown to the wind
and it was
a gift to behold.
—
“beautiful as a dandelion-blossom,
golden in the green grass,
this life can be.
common as a dandelion-blossom,
beautiful in the clean grass,
not beautiful because common,
beautiful because beautiful,
noble because common,
because free.”
– edna st. vincent millay
i woke up in the middle of the night
to loud screaming
coming from
glen frey the cat not the rocker
who was downstairs
in my living room
shrieking
not like
a cat
but like a rocker
being attacked by something
i
carefully
crept
down
the
stairs
tiptoeing
expecting to find him
in a death match
with a
massive rabid opossum
or
grizzly bear
or?
as i got closer
i saw who he was
running from
and
terrified of
and
his enemy
was his own shadow.
running and running and running
in a circle
it was
chasing him
nonstop
he was terrified
running for his own survival
i shut off the lights
called his name
pet him
talked to him
after a while
he calmed down
finally
he laid down
exhausted
heart pounding
i thought about
the many things
that he might have
had to endure
before he was rescued
and
understood
that it all felt very real to him
as if those things were happening to him all over again
but now
he was home
and
he was safe once more.
—
“everything that we see is a shadow
cast by that which we do not see.”
– martin luther king, jr.
—
credits: universal pictures, google images