Dandelions & 70

Emma Lou Warner Thayne wrote a poem about dandelions and turning 70

“Yesterday on my nippy October walk

I picked two dandelions beside the path.

The first was still a yellow starburst

barely poking out from under the dead grass, 

hiding from what the seasons had to say.

It had fooled the wind and slanted sun so well

it had staved off turning into a puff of grey

like the second one I picked, 

round, delicate, standing upright on its stem,

a constellation that might in any wind explode.
...

[She left them on her desk overnight] 

Next morning, 

the yellow dandelion was limp, 

stem and all, 

shriveled to no sign of what it was. 

The grey was still intact, virtually unchanged by being picked, 

As if it needed no nourishment except from itself, inside.

One edge has lost some wisps, thinned out.

But its basics are definable, a constellation still,

on a wrinkled but pliable stem.

It could yet go with the wind in a hundred directions

drop the bounty of its intricate remnants, 

tiny umbrellas to send into spring.

Maybe that’s what being seventy implies, 

what a woman poet says, “I must notice then

and write of all the small glories in my life.”

And then let them scatter as they will.

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I like the thought of being pliable and able to go with the wind - scattering the small glories of our lives.