They’re just dandy with me.

I’ve never understood why people hate dandelions. They turn a Spring meadow into a field full of gold and later they fill the air with fluff that floats on the wind like angel feathers.

Why is the whisper-soft dandelion a weed and a thorn-girded rose a treasure?

When I was a little boy of five or six, an old man berated me for blowing dandelion seeds off a stem. In that moment, he turned something joyful into something fearful. Now, as a middle-aged adult, I wish I could find that man’s grave. I suspect it’s covered with dandelions. And if it is not, I would gladly plant a few there so that when the wind blows the wisps would rise into the air like soaring spirits leaving the clay of their earthly birth behind.

Maybe then, he’d come to believe that dandelions are just dandy, too.

5 comments May 3rd, 2007