Before the Ambulance

I saw him collapse
on the trail that divides
the golf course, then climbs
and looks over the valley
crowded with townhouses
for fifty-five and older.
If we entered the fallen man’s home
we could see the forever stamps
in folded sheaths of waxed paper
neatly tucked beside reading glasses,
an hourglass, and gadgets that calculate
distance and day.
We’d see the unused weekly planners
and the used that annotated
the meetings with doctors
and accountants
and one for a lawyer that was crossed out.
As the siren from down the hill gets louder
we can almost see the singular instants
torn from the planners with tiny tweezers,
some still stuck to others
like those dragonfly magnets
that hold reminders, recipes, or photos
of grandchildren and pets
to the refrigerator.

Dandelion

From May to September
you can’t miss the dandelion:
yellow-crowned orphan of the empty lot,
green-suited saint
who blesses the water spigot,
tenant of the shoulders
of highways and byways.

At summer’s end the flower
transforms into feathery bristles.
Floating in the dry air
like a Jules Verne baloon,
it travels for miles,
pinwheeling over moon dust
until it rests in a crevice,
or is caught on the frayed edge
of a screen door,
or the chipped aiglet of a shoelace.

If it comes to water
it will take root and stand,
the world streaming past
like scenes through a freight-car door
until a child blows upon
the almost transparent crown.

Dennis Cummings has lived in San Diego County all his life and has worked with flower growers there for more than four decades. He studied creative writing at San Diego State for a while during the early seventies. His poems appear in Watershed, Barnstorm, and The Baltimore Review, and elsewhere.