TARAXACUM OFFICINALE

TARAXACUM OFFICINALE

You're lying

in the darkened bedroom

spent from an hour of choosing

which of our bills to pay which to

let slide.

But you'll be glad to know

our girls are helping

as they can:

picking dandelions

collecting their tithes to us

in two piles on the picnic table one

mine, one yours.

I want to know

what makes a thing

dig in

under five months of ice

and at the first touch of spring

push past packed earth

survive herbicide

to spite dreams of solid green

with gold summer

again and again in each of its hundred

heads.

Our debt is to our children:

we owe it to them

to accept the gold they offer.