i don’t know what makes a daffodil 

        a flower

and a dandelion 

        a weed

neither are cosmically significant

    yet 

        somehow

the closest we come to touching the sun

with feet       rooted       to       earth

 

i wonder 

who decided a daffodil was

                                       a flower

      but a dandelion wasn’t

 

who taught my mother to frown

and call the perennials in our neighbors’ yard

               poor       lawn       maintenance

     when they’re actually

               an analogy for human infestation

maybe it’s because they twine up 

from cracks

               that break       her       back

 

it’s because of us the dandelion 

               is trampled 

                         in garden fringes

aging into softness and whispered desires 

as it withers, our hopeful breath

               scatters seeds on the wind 

one       old       dream 

becomes a hundred       new       delusions

 

a dandelion is 

        a       wish      we cannot help making

because if it doesn’t come true

it’s easier to 

               blame       the       dandelion 

                          than ourselves 

 

i love the daffodil

               but i pity the dandelion

torn from its grassy cradle, labeled a nuisance

for the       crime       of growing

        a flower’s

                nature is 

                          to blossom

yet dandelions are       resented       for it

 

we should encourage those rarities 

brave       enough       to       bloom

our world already has a deficit of yellow

let the dandelion be free 

                to      thrive      among daffodils