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Dandelion Dreams

—to Melody, on the occasion of her fifth birthday

I see her, through the window, picking flowers.
Adrift upon a sea of green, she towers
Above the honeybees that hover over
The rippling waves of newly blooming clover.

She sees the dazzling meadow all around her
And glories in the morning which has found her,
With darting eyes, entranced by every sight
That fills her childish heart with sheer delight.

Each step to her astonishment unveils
New vistas, as fresh breezes fill her sails
And carry her across that sea immense
Spread out before the eyes of innocence.

She stoops and picks a wispy orb of white,
Then holds it as she stands again upright,
Then blows to send the seed-spores of her dreams,
Upon the winds of destiny in streams.

With them, I float in thought across that scene,
And down a verdant slope of fluttering green
Across the hills of forty faded years
To one forgotten field, that now appears

So fresh in my mind’s eye, as I can see
In some far corner of my memory
That fragrant place, where as a child of five,
I first felt boundless joy to be alive.

I see him still, a young boy spending hours
Adrift upon a sea of green, who towers
Above the honeybees that hover over
The rippling waves of newly blooming clover.

Like her, he clasps a fistful of his dreams
And with a puff, he sends them forth in streams,
To float on high, above the sad world’s sorrows,
Across a thousand yet unborn tomorrows.

Who would have thought that, by the winds that blow,
One seed sent forth in hope so long ago
Would spring up some day, at a future hour,
And grow into a lovely, radiant flower

Yet there she is, out dancing in a field,
As I look on with wonder unconcealed,
Her locks brushed gently by the hand of day,
Her soft cheek kissed by morning’s warming ray.

.

.

Martin Rizley grew up in Oklahoma and in Texas, and has served in pastoral ministry both in the United States and in Europe. He is currently serving as the pastor of a small evangelical church in the city of Málaga on the southern coast of Spain, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Martin has enjoyed writing and reading poetry as a hobby since his early youth.

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21 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Martin, that is such a smoothly written beautiful poem presenting a precious
    paean to youthful innocence as represented by the dandelion and the fields of clover, among other things. The paternal instincts are not only alive and well but suffused with pride and remembrance.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thanks, Roy, for your appreciative remarks. As I said to Paul in my reply to his comment, the origin of this poem goes back seventeen years, to when my daughter was five. I recently decided to rewrite in a classical style, with rhyme and meter, what I wrote back then in free verse. So the content derives from that earlier poem, but the “paternal instincts” you mention are still there, and I suspect that I will feel them in full force, along with “pride and remembrance,” on my daughter´s upcoming wedding day in October.

      Reply
      • Roy Eugene Peterson

        I know you will feel them and congratulations on your daughter’s future wedding. We are blessed you converted this poem into a precious classical poem.

  2. Paul A. Freeman

    As my kids end university, I find myself looking back on the past as well as looking forward into the future.

    A fine snapshot, with fine imagery, of children growing up.

    Thanks for the read, Martin.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thank you, Paul. This poem is in fact, a recently “versified” version of a poem that I wrote in free verse years ago. So the original version of the poem was written about seventeen years ago, when my daughter was on the verge of turning five. Now she is twenty-two, and her wedding is scheduled for October of this year. (Yes, I have already written a poem for her wedding day.) How time does fly!

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is a very beautiful piece. It reads as smoothly and as clear-flowing as a stream of oil, or as lightly airborne as those dandelion seed-spores. All blessings upon you and your family.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thanks for your appreciated feedback– and many blessings to you and yours, as well.

      Reply
  4. Shamik Banerjee

    Mr. Rizley, no lines of appreciation of mine, however long, can ever fully express my feelings sentiments this poem. I fully agree with Mr. Salemi’s words. This piece has some unworldly unguent that heals the soul. By far the most beautiful poem I’ve read in a long time. Thank you so much. God bless you.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Shamik, I am moved by your words, and am glad you found the poem to be like “healing unguent.” What a lovely thing to say about a poem! I can only say that the poem sprang from very deep feelings that came to me at the time of wistful remembrance, wonder, and thanksgiving, and I am pleased to know that the imagery in the poem serves to transmit those feelings.

      Reply
  5. jd

    This poem paints such lovely pictures,
    Martin. We are blessed that you decided
    to rewrite it for SCP.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thank you, jd. I find myself lately very keen to go back to some of my earlier poems written in free verse and recast them in a new mold. I find it both enjoyable and challenging to “versify” poetic thoughts already expressed by rewriting them with rhyme and meter. Moreover, when you reach your sixties, this also seems to me like an excellent way to keep one´s cognitive faculties sharp– certainly more attractive for me than playing Sudoku!

      Reply
  6. Cynthia Erlandson

    Beautiful imagery, with the dandelion puffs floating as dreams, through time, into the past.

    Reply
  7. Yael

    That’s a lovely birthday poem which I enjoyed reading, great job! Your daughter is blessed to have such wonderful poetry written about her and I wish your family all the best for the upcoming wedding.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thank you, Yael. Perhaps, after my daughter´s wedding, I´ll submit to Evan the poem I wrote for her wedding day. After watching my daughter grow another seventeen years, I find the contrast in perspective interesting– and I think that readers might find it interesting, as well.

      Reply
  8. Gigi Ryan

    Dear Martin,
    You have created a timeless and beautiful gift for Melody.
    Your transition from watching her to watching yourself as a child in your memories was so smooth and added great depth to your poem.
    The older I get, the more I see these liturgies like these that come around again and again in my children and grandchildren.
    Thank you for sharing this powerful poem.
    Gigi

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thank you, Gigi, for your feedback. I find your use of the word “liturgies” fascinating, for it well expresses the experience of watching a set pattern of life experiences that is repeated over and over in each generation, first in our own lives, then in the lives of our children, grandchildren, etc. The word liturgies underscores the awareness that comes to us in key moments of our lives that we are participating in something very old and very sacred, as we pass milestones along life´s path that have been placed there ahead of us by God, the Giver of life.

      Reply
  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Martin, I love the way this truly beautiful poem captures how ephemeral our time on earth is with that symbolic dandelion highlighting the cyclical nature of life through you and your lovely daughter. The penultimate stanza is my favorite… for me it captures life’s meaning. Observing the miracle of my own child and grandchild has filled my heart with joy and made me complete. Martin, thank you.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Thank you, Susan, for your lovely comments. I do not yet have grandkids, but I eagerly look forward to the day when that may become a reality. What you say about the cyclical nature of life is quite true– Gigi in her comment above uses the word “liturgies” to describe this set pattern of life experiences, repeated in every generation, of which we become more aware the older we get. Our lives may have a linear direction and destiny, but we get there through a series of life events that fall out through the endlessly repeating cycle of the seasons, as the flow of years causes us to pass by milestone after milestone that others have passed before us, and that our children will pass, as well, as long as the world endures. Two of my favorite songs– “Sunrise, sunset” and “The Green Leaves of Summer” speak so beautifully of this cyclical reality, which has served as the theme of so many poetic reflections over the years. Here is a link to the original version of the Green Leaves of Summer, a song I can never listen to without a tear coming to my eye:
      https://youtu.be/x-KbHCnIr5I?si=zeJLv-GvFhT1WCBJ

      Reply
      • Susan Jarvis Bryant

        Martin, what a beautiful song. I started to tear up at the “sweet smell of apples”… that olfactory memory is indelibly etched on my heart and takes me right back to the apple orchards of Kent and my British fruit-picking days. My favorite apple is a Cox’s Orange Pippin. I had withdrawal symptoms here in Texas. The sentiment and arrangement of the song is heart-tuggingly wonderful. Thank you for sharing this treat.

  10. Margaret Coats

    Martin, felicitations on the upcoming wedding of your daughter. Like others, I would be interested to read the poem you have for her on that day. “Dandelion Dreams” is a fascinating piece, and I hope you understand the compliment when I call it superbly structured. Dream poems, especially ones I have seen recently, can feature horrendous misunderstanding of the very nature of dreams, which is made still worse by confusion in word choice and lyric genre purporting to convey these delicate workings of the mind to others. You, however, know just how to narrate a sequence of different kinds of dream so that they are as vivid to the reader as to the dreamer. Here you begin with dreams that arise from a child’s intent observation of her surroundings. These become specific dreams, as she makes wishes with a dandelion. Her father, seeing this, goes into his own dream of memory, which is a memory of a scene surprisingly similar–so much so that you can use repetitions of phrases to re-present it. These convey the dreams of the father as a boy. We come to a moment of clarity with multiple dreams on display as you speak of the boy’s “unborn tomorrows.” Clearly, one of these is the small boy’s future daughter who is a small girl in the present tense of the poem. But at the time of boyhood dreams, the daughter was no more than a dandelion seed sent forth (probably without specific wishes) by the boy. Your gradual development of dream drama shows that seed-dream come true in the flower that is the daughter sending forth her own dream-wishes as dandelion seeds. This is truly a beautifully presented dream within a dream within a dream!

    This intricately structured display is true to feelings and to how the mind flows, both in imagination and in logic. That is why, according to a great poetry critic, poems offer healing solace to readers. You’ve seen that here in the response of Shamik Banerjee, who with your poem as the means, gladly confirms this important truth about poetry.

    Reply
    • Martin Rizley

      Margaret,
      Thank you for taking the time to read carefully and analyze what is taking place in the poem. I had not thought about the “dream within a dream within a dream” structure that you bring to light, but I think you are correct in pointing out that the action in the poem takes place on different and progressively deeper levels of perception that reflect the way human thoughts naturally flow, with physical and mental visions of the present and the past interweaving, to give the entire poem a dream-like quality. Thank you for helping me to better understand these structural features of the poem!

      Reply

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