It's In The Promise Of The Wishberry

 A few weeks ago on a damp and cold and dreary 

 Spring day

she asked,

"When do you ever think

we will see those yellow flowers again?"

 

I said,

 "What yellow flowers?"

 But I was thinking

tulips...

or

daffodils...

 

Then with a contemplative

tone in her voice

she said,

"Well...,

 the only way I know

to describe them

is

 they are

young wishberries!"

 

Then I knew!

Ah yes.

Young wishberries.

When she was just a tiny

wisp

of

a

child,

quiet

and

intuitive,

hardly talking,

she christened a dandelion puff

calling it

"a wishberry".

I've loved dandelion puffs,

since I was a child.

Still,

even now,

I love blowing them

and

watching the seeds

float,

float away,

on the wings of the fragile puff

of my breath

or the wind.

Once when I was in elementary school

I found a huge dandelion puff

where two stems had fused

and grown together

making a

heart shaped puff

much larger than I had ever seen.

And so began my fascination with them.

Upon her pronouncement of calling them

wishberries,

so very aptly named,

in my humble opinion,

they became just that much more

dear to me.

And

we've enjoyed

wishberries

together

ever since.

 

We never fail to have

a bouquet each Spring

 of

young wishberries

and violets.

 

I perused the yard and I only found one actual wishberry.

 

It wasn't a perfectly round seed pod of puff and promise.

 

It was actually kind of small and tattered.

 

It was battered by the wind and last night's rain.

 

But still the promises were there,

in the seeds

that waited to be released

from their tiny station on the stem.

 

The seed held the promise for more young wishberries.

 

The seeds will float,

float away,

still a part of their past,

but becoming something new.

 

Renewal

Growth

I suppose life

just isn't life

without it.

Scattering and change

and yet

still

hope for regrowth.

 

When there is enough rain and wind and battering,

 

those seeds will

loosen their grip and spread

 

and there will be more yellow polka dots across

 

the lawn.

 

I know most people don't like them.

And find them to be a nuisance.

 

I see hope...

in the promise of the wishberry.

 

Don't you?