CHARLES H. JOHNSON
DANDELION WINE
Every year since my father
retired he’s given me an unlabeled
bottle of his finest,
which isn’t from a vine grafted
from an old world or cultivated
specifically for acidity or sweetness
in logically laid-out rows.
No berry for this vintage.
It comes from a plant—
common at that—a weed
(like us, I suppose some would say)
rooted ingloriously to the earth
random but abundant
on an otherwise well-maintained lawn.
No lash forces him to bend
his aged back to pick clean
the gold from the fenced-in
well-watered green but he reaches
down repeatedly, religiously
to fill his sack with the mellow
magic his neighbors can’t wait
to root out from their neighborhood.
As he kneels beside each despised
object of delight his self-willed
activity overshadows the history
of a new world’s drunken lust
for gain on the broken backs
of those stolen in chains.
All day he works without
complaint about the strain and
sweat as if to confirm the lowliest
can bring joy only when
respectful attention is maintained.
But if his neighbors’ pristine
lawns forecast the past repeating itself,
those darker days will settle far
away from his suburban-tract Cape Cod,
his land and his world
he freely labored to create with
each paycheck and every gift
of sunshine I savor
whenever I sip dandelion wine.
