Dandelion poetry

We brought dinner to the beach last week, and afterwards we walked out to the dock and played along the shore. Leif found a cluster of dandelions gone to seed and hunched over, snapping the hollow milky stems and double fisting his prize.

"I'm going to make a wish!" he said. "I wish for . . . " I could see him searching for something extravagant. "A chocolate cake!" he said expansively.

puff puff spit huff spit puff

"I'm not going to blow anymore. I'm just going to whack the wishes off now," he said, striking the fluff balls against the railing, then plucking them apart manually. "Look - a school of wishes!" He watched them drift off in a hazy clump. "Hey! The wishes are all hugging each other!" And then he spotted some goslings and trotted off down the beach.

How wonderful to wish for chocolate cake. To have to think hard for something to wish for, to have all your needs met, to have no cares or sickness or worries to wish away.

For me, my children and their pure, unspoiled interactions with the world are the most potent antidote to the suffering I witness at work and sometimes carry home with me as a little black cloud over my heart.