Count Down

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury 
We called them clocks
though I never thought much then
about time. Just downy-headed dandelions
and counting down
in numbered breaths, one, two
the seeds wayward with the way 
the wind elects
parachuting to safety
elsewhere

I recall relief in that release
liberation in the hands of a child,
Airborne on her breath, on the loose
adventurers, feather light and flying fast
further even than tumbleweed
can roll.

Now I see how quickly 
time turns those heads;
one day in May, lion mane yellow
a full ball of fluff  turned in a trice
then gone on the wind.
These are our sakura moments
telling of transience
like clocks.

Lillian is host and Its open link night @ dVerse where anything goes

32 thoughts on “Count Down”

  1. I love dandelions – and your dandelion poem, Laura, so delicate and descriptive, especially:

    ‘…counting down
    in numbered breaths, one, two
    the seeds wayward with the way
    the wind elects
    parachuting to safety’

    and

    ‘one day in May, lion mane yellow
    a full ball of fluff  turned in a trice
    then gone on the wind’.

    I also like the circularity with the poem beginning and ending with clocks.

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  2. This is beautiful, Laura. We did a Japan cruise a number of years ago…and I remember we were always in search of the cherry blossoms (sakura)….and finally as we got to the last two days, there they were, in full bloom. And I also remember being in Washington DC in a rental apartment for a month during cherry blossom time….we had a large tree in our back yard and when there was a breeze, we had the most heavenly cherry blossom “rain” — definitely a sakura moment. I like the idea of the comparison to the “downy headed” dandelions….and the passage of time…the child playing with the dandelion puffs….and then the transience of time in the end. As I said, a beautiful write.

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  5. Your poem is stunning .. takes me back to those evenings when family sat around under the canopy of a huge oak … adults spinning yarns, children blowing dandelions and catching fireflies. I wasn’t sure of the meaning of trice and happy I looked it up. Sakura I knew …. lived in DC a few years. 

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  6. Exactly my observation in the past week. Dandelions everywhere and then suddenly gone to seed…I don’t recall such a sharp delineation before. Perhaps time itself is transforming…(K)

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  9. This is exquisitely drawn, Laura! I especially admire this part; “counting down in numbered breaths, one, two the seeds wayward with the way the wind elects parachuting to safety.” ❤️❤️❤️

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  11. I love your drawing out the timeless moments of childhood via the clocks of dandelions to the adult fear of “time’s winged chariot drawing near…”

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  12. Sigh! So beautiful, Laura. It’s funny how when we were kids, time seemed to move in slow motion and now it’s gone in a blink. Or is it now we are racing against time?

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