Friday, March 10, 2006

calendar/schmalendar
it's time
for dandelion clocks

3 Comments:

Blogger Little Onion said...

I'm interested that we have had two spring haiku with dandelion seeds - this one and one from 'extra special bitter' - here in the UK dandelion is a spring kigo, spring being the time that suddenly the yellow flowers appear in the verges, just above the grass, (which still hasn't happened yet) - the seeds and 'clocks' (seed heads) being very late spring or summer.

I still love to pick a dandelion stalk with it's puffball of seeds and tell the time with it - how many blows to set all the seeds on the breeze.

Little Onion

11:35 PM  
Blogger Alison said...

I'm not sure, but I think maybe the dandelion clocks referred to in the haiku are different to the seed heads we call dandelion clocks.

Maybe David, or someone else 'over there' could let us know?

1:00 AM  
Blogger david giacalone said...

Hi, LO and AW: My poem scoffs at the calendar and demands dandelion clocks now, although it's probably a couple months early here in the northeast USA for those little fluff balls. (It was June here last year when the fluff balls took over our neighborhood.) My notion of a dandelion clock is the same as this description (with a picture) from Wikipedia:

"The [dandelion] flower head consists entirely of ray florets and matures into a globe of fine filaments that are usually distributed by wind, carrying away the seed-containing achenes. This globe (receptacle) is called the 'dandelion clock', and blowing it apart is a popular pastime for children."

Paul might have been jumping the season, too, with his tax-filing poem, which got me pining for those fluffy-headed symbols of the cycle of life.

5:56 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home