Making Peace
As a child I loved
dandelions.
Once grown, I bought
into the ads, glossy pages
of garden magazines
alerting me to the enemy
status of the weed.
I began to loathe them
spending springtime cursing them
trying to dig them out
while their roots
shrank back in the clay
retreating and curling back
into the ground
burying themselves deeper
for a more glorious resurrection.
I hated them for trying
to grow where they weren’t wanted
and couldn’t admit
they didn’t harm my flowers
if you don’t count the collateral damage
from my violent attempts
at uprooting them.
The more I focused my anger
on them, the better they grew.
This spring I have decided
a truce is in order. Looking out
I recall how, as a child, I loved
those buttery dots that mixed
with the grass and clover behind our house
and on my school’s ball field
the many minutes I spent blowing
on their spider web heads
casting their seeds
onto the wind to find a home.
To multiply with my blessing.
Suzanne Baldwin Leitner
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