Dandelion Zuihitsu

The dandelion seed must go where the wind blows, so that it can finally set its roots down to grow. Or as the wind, it decides the soil it will finally learn. Or else it will die and shrivel at least spiritually without ever being able to leave.

Let it float and explore and see the world

live the wonder that lives in the eyes

of the child that blew it with ballooning heart

The innocence, the happiness, the joy, the warmth, the smile that I don’t realize comes to my face

In watching children we find that unbridled joy does exist. It pervades our very souls and continues to exist. We just forget sometimes, that we can be happy.

“Responsibility: my response to the needs,

expressed or unexpressed, of another human being.

To be responsible means to be able and ready to respond.”

“Respect is the ability to see a person as

they are, to be aware of their unique individuality.

Respect means the concern that the other person

should grow and unfold as they are. Respect,

thus, implies the absence of exploitation.”

You love by letting go. Love is created when

both people are free to express themselves

as who they are; they have bloomed,

found themselves, and love themselves.

Pure independence and the ability to stand alone

The first thing I should control is myself.

How do you love a petal adrift? A flower?

How do you love someone who doesn’t know what it is about them that can be loved? Someone

who doesn’t know what they are going to become—not that any of us know— but where they will be in the next drift of the wind? Someone who has not fully formed, in the midst of amalgamation so shapeless and formless and therefore light with the wind, a petal that can be carried effortlessly by someone who knows the wind? A mere child’s breath? A single winged seed, a feather umbrella to which a fairy and an unlived life holds on for dear life— a little dot that contains so many things like a child’s joy, an adult’s wish, the moment of wonder where we look up and watch something float away out of our control, for once glad that something is happening just because it is?

The impetus that pushes us over the edge towards freedom. Not having to be in control and the joy in it. The beautiful yellows against beautiful greens, browns, greys, and, hell why not, purples?

They catch our eyes our moments and these things fill our lives. The dandelion in the corner

of an eye is an essence of all that makes up our lives. A sensation, a noticing, a perceiving with vivid color that breathes life into us; for once we see something for what it is, not living in the thoughts that we build our world with.

It’s a home for the minutiae. A rectangular

petal. A home for the insecure, the incubated,

the not yet found and perpetually lost..

You know what it’s called? a hardy perennial.

They’re so special so bright so vibrant

full dandelions full of the universe and eternity

and search and love and freedom all in one.

Its life cycle an implosion into itself, the fragile

orb fragmented aflutter at once set free with

embued wish and sometimes with the privilege

of our breath. Thank you for existing along

side us, for a moment we fixate to liberate you.

Winged seed carrying the wonder with wholehearted attention, love, wonder. The moments caught to stop and wish. Dandelion fields shine verdant with windswept wishes. A child prays with a breath for ardent freedom.

L'amour est l'enfant de la liberté.

you can’t keep holding this flower.

by breath or breeze I will fly

or at last until I make my own wind …

Don't blame the lostness on anyone. I just was. And it wasn't wrong, but it's something only I can solve alone, by drifting alone. Gone with the wind but the most found I have ever been.

I just needed to be who I was. It wasn't you, or me, or us that was faulty.

I am not here but I have moved on because of who we built me to be. This poem is our son. And I tell our son, it’s crucial that you find yourself with the wind before you attach yourself to the earth. The world is bigger than one person.

I’m just a dandelion trying to grow my own yellow crown again.