I have written about
the language of flowers
as they spoke in golden times.
The lore today seems absent
flowers too scarce and meaning
less.
Recess duty at a country school
the third grade races into
the yellow-spotted field.
I am lulled by rural silence
there is not the constant hum
of a nearby highway
no factory, no traffic, no
distant drive-thru speaker
only shrieks of delight of children at play
Soon I am kneeling in a patch of yellow,
fingertips searching out the thickest stem
following it to the ground, where I pluck.
An inch from the bottom I hold it, and
pierce it with my thumbnail. I pick
another and thread it through the hole
-Its proud yellow mane holding it in-
and I punch a hole in this stem as well.
The children only notice after I've completed the
chain and have circled it on my head.
"Make me one! Make me one!" I show them how
and we create dandelion jewelry, fuzzy
bracelets, neck garlands and crowns seeping
milky-white sap. "Do you like butter?" I hold
a dandelion under the 8-year-old chin and
smile at the yellow reflection. "You do!" They busy
themselves with butter trials of their classmates.
Someone must have discovered dandelion dye, as I
spy small yellow lion noses in the crowd. We
blow at the puff of thin white seeds to see how
much the one we love returns the favor, while
others, less concerned with love, wish for toys or
a baby sister. "Momma had a baby and its
head popped off!" chant the boys as they gleefully
decapitate flowers with their thumbs. One boy
teaches me "parachute" and he tosses a flower
up so it spins neatly down, round and round,
stem down, like a parasol.
Recess accidentally runs over today.
I return the group, with their brown
sticky fingers and yellow noses, to their
teacher. They look like little flower fairies, decked
out in dandy jewels. A girl reaches up and
crowns her teacher with a well-worn chain
"It's my fault" I begin to explain, brushing
back flower ribbons in my hair. She gives me
a delighted smile, "I can see they really enjoyed
themselves". She removes her crown before the
sap can stain her hair.
May 9, 1997
Heather Shaw