I picked a dandelion
on my way to the store,
a perfect little orb of potential.

I thought about blowing,
scattering the seeds into the world,
stepping through the cloud
so that some of its magic might seep into me,
pick up a hint of a dream and carry it out into the great blue world.

But I wanted to wait
for the right moment.

I rambled off the main road,
through the tall trees by the park
to a shaded side street,
past a magnolia, blooming like mad.

The light was right,
late afternoon sun-strings dripping through the leaves,
and it was quiet, and perfect.

But there was someone weeding in the yard,
and a young couple walking across the street,
and all of a sudden i felt ashamed,
a grown man clutching a dandelion,
so i put it in my bag, for later.

- - -

Later came, and I found it, forgotten,
crushed under a week’s worth of milk and eggs,
ten or twelve huddled feathers clinging to the underside.

And even though it was a shadow of the strong-stemmed bulb I’d picked,
and even though it had been a long, drizzly workday melting into a dull, freezer-pizza evening,
and even though the light was all wrong
in the supermarket parking lot,

and i was tired,
surrounded by shoppers
but feeling lost in the world,

I breathed in
and blew.