Pale Dandelion

The little girl with curly hair
still curls up in my chest,
her puffy hands like risen dough
pressed tight against the Brest.
I asked her once, why do you wish
to hear the birds that fly?
She answered only silence, deep,
like a river running dry.
And the pale dandelion followed,
seeds scattered on the wind,
whispering forgotten wishes
that never learned to end.
Years rolled heavy like old wagons
down the road I tried to flee,
I changed my name, I wore new skins,
I laughed in fleeting revelry.
I almost lost the quiet child
who couldn’t hear a sound,
yet she moves when I move,
she breathes when breath is found.
A hundred years in one long sigh,
a lifetime stitched in me..
that deaf little girl remains alive,
and she will never flee.
Now I stand where tall grass bends and bows,
blowing pale dandelion seeds
toward a sky that swallows light
and answers only needs.
Each white ghost drifts like drifting pain,
a prayer without a name,
“Universe, just let me hear
the wings that pass the same.”
Do I hear them softly calling?
Or the echo of her stare?
The pale dandelion follows still,
it’s tangled in my hair.
There is no door, no hidden trail,
no river deep to cross.
The broken past still hunts me down,
it knows my every loss.
You can run through every season,
cry aloud in every storm,
but that curly-headed silence
will keep your body warm.
And when the weight comes crashing in,
when night devours the day,
you are the refuge, you are the roof,
you are the hand that stays.
So I keep blowing the dandelion,
watching white ghosts fill the sky,
whispering to the universe
while the little girl stands by.
She doesn’t need the birds to sing..
she taught me how to feel the sky.
And the pale dandelion follows,
it always follows,
through the fields where echoes never die.