THE YELLOW FLOWERS

dandelions:
impetuous weeds
advancing from one suburban lawn
to invade another
in their insistence on life
beautiful or not
who would dare compare them to roses
or would not
but what violence wrecked on
those blooming yellow heads
by the whirling blades of dad’s Saturday
morning mower
not dead to the roots until
a slower death saturates
the agony of herbicide
then the innocent toddler
in the yard next door
plucking fistfuls for mother
yet the parachutes still fly in wild
currents of air
dropping seeds
the paratroopers
behind enemy lines