Dandelions as Countless As

It's raining again. The blossoms of our trees have given way to tentative leaves; our old uncle the maple is beginning to tuft. Now I'm waiting to see which of our new crabs and redbuds from last year will be late leafers, and which are dead and will have to be ripped out and tossed on the scrap pile. Dandelions bloom with abandon, and if they didn't have such a bad reputation I'd think the lawn was resplendent with them.

Yesterday afternoon--finally in a desperate bid to save face in the neighborhood I borrowed a friend's lawnmower and tackled the three-inch grass. My visiting father took over for a while, swerving around new trees and stumps and the fire-hydrant (which the mower finally hit with a great noise, retch, and sudden silence).

"Now," I said to our neat, very kind friend as I almost broke his gate to pieces trying to wheel his mower back into his yard, "If you hear a little rattle, don't worry! It's probably a loose screw! Ha, ha! Martin will be sure to come round and fix it!" And then I mowed his tiny back yard in payment, and it was such an easy, straight-forward task after the disaster that is our yard--tiny toys hidden, cords that pop out of nowhere, shrubs that masquerade as twigs. It's hard to see them under the sea of grass.

Dad left this afternoon for meetings in Baltimore and Mom drove off to pluck Martin from the airport curb, so it's relatively quiet around here, quiet enough to write about nothing when there are so many heavy, complex things that I won't or can't write about. . .Instead I count the white crowns of dandelions out of my window, and it is like counting the stars, there are so many. One week of classes left, one week of exams, and then the summer stretches in front of us, days full of garden and fresh herbs chopped over tomatoes and the smells of sunscreen and sweat and blooming flowers.