The Tooth of the Lion

 

The Tooth of the Lion

June 3 2021

It's been a dry spring.

Stunted grass

brown patches

scattered weeds.

But the dandelions flourish,

saw-toothed leaves

and bright yellow flowers

that turn in days to seed,

white cadaverous tufts

ghosting in the breeze.

The sort of thing we admire,

tough survivors

sustained by deep tenacious roots

and true to their nature.

So could it be

that it's their echo of mortality

we find so disturbing,

the rapid fall from beauty

into withered old things,

all leggy stems

malignant leaves

and pale alien heads?

Their metastatic spread,

taking over the planet

as they've travelled in our wake?

It is said they make a fine salad

dandelion tea.

Perhaps this is how we'll vanquish them

growing fat on our enemies.

Like the ancient Inca

eating conquered soldiers' hearts,

consuming the fallen

in an act of homage.

Or as we moderns do,

with mowers and herbicides.

But for now, in full bloom

I admire their beauty,

a polka-dot meadow

of sun-kissed heads

as succulent and fresh

as a clear April morning.

We wish for longevity

and a painless end.

But there is much to be said

for a brief life,

lived with intensity and grace.

 

They did indeed travel in our wake. There were no dandelions in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans. Like rats and humans, they have taken over the world!

The name of this weed, as the title says, is a corruption of the French: “dents-de-lion.”

There must be another poem in the metaphysical debate raised by that designation – weed. A word that is meaningless in biology, except as a human construct and aesthetic choice.