Dandelions

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By jennifer

Fri, 24 Apr 2026
  • 396 reads
22 comments
 

Dandelions 

Jennifer Pickup, 24.04.2026
Those yellow flowers on the lawn,
intruders that did not belong,
she dug their souls up one by one
using a tool that was two-pronged.
I watched them hide beneath the grass,
pop their heads out when she had passed,
defiant manes of golden pride
raising their faces to the sky.
They bathed there in the summer sun,
from dawn until each day was done,
they’d multiply as if for fun
with speed her tool could not outrun.
Some fairy magic would be cast,
upon those yellow heads so fast,
then quicker than the blink of eyes,
as silver halos they’d disguise.
And for a day or two they gleamed,
waiting for a whispering breeze
to separate them from their hearts,
then one by one they would depart.
Into the blazing summer sky,
like parachutists they would fly!
As worlds in miniature went by,
inexplicably I would cry.
Tonight I plucked one from its stem,
though half the clocks had flown by then.
I held it tight inside my palm
to stop the time from marching on…
If fairy magic could be used
to bring back all the things we lose,
then dandelions would be worth
far more than all the gold on earth.
Certificate U
Poem
Eye of the Storm (2026)
Love

Comments

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

this is beautiful Jennifer (as are dandelions)

I hope you will take part in our new poetry challenge? All details on the front page

 

Submitted by jennifer on

Thank you! I think they are magical, as the poem shows!

I have entered, love a competition, what a lovely idea forms the basis of it too!

J x

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Such beautiful displays! My mother once had a halo-head of seeds enclosed in resin as a paper-weight! And a yound son once asked me, seeing a lawn full of the pom-poms, why we couldn't have those in our garden! (Our lawn at the time was tiny and hadn't sprouted such a display) But I do like the sparkling celendines which suddenly open out as the sun comes out! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by jennifer on

Celandines, dandelions, buttercups, daffodils. They fill me with joy, as do daisies!

Pom-poms! Another lovely way to describe those fluffy heads!

While a part of me loves the idea of the halo-head in resin, frozen forever in time, a part of me feels sad that those tiny parachutists will never fly away on a summer breeze. 

And then there's the part of me who squashed them last night, and then put them in the bin, in a moment of angry grief.

J x

 

Submitted by HarryC on

I agree! I like dandelions. And daisies. Weeds is the wrong word for them. They all have their beauty.

I'd sooner have a meadow than a lawn smiley

Submitted by jennifer on

...who decided, in the first place, which plants were weeds and which were not. 

The British Class System, rife in the gardening world!

I love a hedge bindweed, too. Those beautiful, delicate white and pink-and-white flowers.

J x

 

Submitted by HarryC on

...and honeysuckle! wink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVF6HUOLTE

Submitted by jennifer on

Thank you for sharing this song, it's hilarious! Not enough comedy songs are written about plants!

J x

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

I love the littel pink and white ones  on the ground, - field bindweed I think, but not so keen on the big white ones that seem to smother everything else they can! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by jennifer on

But the little pink and white ones are prettiest, agreed!

J x

 

Submitted by Tom Brown on

Ballad to a dandilion! Who would have thought?! a heaven in a wild flower.
"Those yellow flowers on the lawn, intruders that did not belong",

Good! Tom

 

Submitted by jennifer on

...it is, writing about yellow flowers! I believe critics were quite dismissive about Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' at the time, but I've always liked it! You've reminded me of it, I've just read it again!

A ballad to a weed, who would have thought, indeed! (Edna St. Vincent Millay did it first!)

Thank you! I think it's one of my best!

J x

 

Submitted by marandina on

A  lovely celebration of a wonderful flower. On such a gorgeous day as it has been, this has to be the Facebook, X/Twitter and BlueSky Pick of the Day.

Congratulations.

[I couldn't validate the photo you have used. I can't find a comparable image elsewhere so I imagine it's your own pic/work. Please confirm if that's okay. Congrats again]

 

 

Submitted by jennifer on

Thrilled with my golden cherries for my golden Daffodils! Thank you!

I took the photo myself one recent summer. Please do go ahead and use it!

J x

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Love the last verse. They seem to me to represent Life's, perhaps God's, patience

 

Submitted by jennifer on

I'm not sure dandelions are patient, though God maybe is.

Dandelions are... resilient, determined, stubborn, and have been seemingly granted with eternal life (by God, perhaps, who definitely has a dark sense of humour at times).

Thank you, I wrote the first six verses and was going to leave it there, but the idea it wasn't finished kept niggling at my mind, and then, just after midnight, the eigth/last verse just came to me (divine intervention?) and so I had, of course, to write the seventh too, for balance.

The whole poem came from a conversation about the dandelions in my lawn between my mother and I earlier that day (and I plucked the half-flown one in the seventh verse outside my front door that evening, after she left).

J x

 

Submitted by celticman on

Lovely poem. 

 

Submitted by jennifer on

Very happy with this one!

J x

 

Submitted by onemorething on

This is our Poem of the Week! Congratulations!

 

Submitted by jennifer on

Thank you! What an accolade! A perfect moment in my week!

J x

 

 

Submitted by Eric Marsh on

 

 

Submitted by jennifer on

...I am sure more will soon emerge!

Loads in the fields around us! (And in my lawn!)

J x