Dandelion

When I was a child I used to like drinking Dandelion & Burdock. Also, Sasparilla. There was, in fact, a whole range of soft, fizzy drinks: limeade, cherryade, any kind of -ade. Two different factories bottled locally. Now there's only Cola, Cola, Cola, anywhere in the world.

The dandelion, more than any other flower, is the flower of childhood – whether one rubs his nose yellow in its pollen, blows its seeds onto the breeze or has to eat the damn greens with mustard sauce.

Dandelion dancetheater is a post-modern dance – theater company based in the San Francisco Bay Area under the direction of Kimiko and Eric Guthrie-Kupers that collides raw, emotionally-driven, athletic and lyrical movement
with theatrical scenes and gesture to explore the essence of what it is to be alive.

Most times, I think of weeding a yard. I can imagine those stupid garden tools, and my jeans being torn at the knees.

Some times, I think of blowing the dandelion seeds in peoples' faces.

That Vidalia, once exposed to air, began to rot.

That Picadilly, with consummate aplomb, finally published his picaresque autobiography.

That I once stood in a decrepit formica kitchen and prepared a dandelion salad for an ex-lover.

That it was August. Dusk. Once.

That Frank Leigh Dearie did write down »I Love You,« and mail it.

Dandelions make a fine wine, and dandelion greens make a fine wilted salad. But best of all, dandelion flowers dot a field with a cheeriness that can't be replicated anywhere.