Читать книгу The Carrying - Ada Limón - Страница 21

DANDELION INSOMNIA

The big-ass bees are back, tipsy, sun drunk

and heavy with thick knitted leg warmers

of pollen. I was up all night again so today’s

yellow hours seem strange and hallucinogenic.

The neighborhood is lousy with mowers, crazy

dogs, and people mending what winter ruined.

What I can’t get over is something simple, easy:

How could a dandelion seed head seemingly

grow overnight? A neighbor mows the lawn

and bam, the next morning, there’s a hundred

dandelion seed heads straight as arrows

and proud as cats high above any green blade

of manicured grass. It must bug some folks,

a flower so tricky it can reproduce asexually,

making perfect identical selves, bam, another me,

bam, another me. I can’t help it—I root

for that persecuted rosette so hyper in its

own making it seems to devour the land.

Even its name, translated from the French

dent de lion, means lion’s tooth. It’s vicious,

made for a time that requires tenacity, a way

of remaking the toughest self while everyone

else is asleep.