Saturday, February 4, 2012


“Dandelion Clock” ©
Mike Absalom 13th January 2012

It’s only a game!
Your daughter takes a deep
breath
and tinkling with mischief
blows the dandelion clock
into a thousand dangling
parachutes.
The seeds drift upwards,
marking time,
waiting weightless
wondering who will catch up.

While we all giggle together
at the deadly threat posed
by the inevitability of
numbers,
and while we drink iced tea
under a green umbrella,
your daughter tallies time already
lost
and we plunge deeper into the
spent afternoon by default.
It’s only a kid’s game after
all!

A teatime shadow creeps across
the lawn
reaching us from your tame
birch tree,
and before we have time to
notice,
and as inexorably as the final
words of a judge,
the lawn is turned into a quivering
sundial.

Dandelion down falls now like
living snow
and I am blown away by the
beauty of it.
It’s only a kid’s game!
But still I am blown away!

Your daughter takes a deep
breath
and tinkling with mischief
blows the dandelion clock
into a million springtime dandelions.
I am blown away.

And in the end, so are we
all.

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