The Dandelion Manifesto

To the humans now known as “white”
Who came from what is now known as Western Europe
And have forgotten who we are
Who you are
Who we all are.

Why do you think we keep coming back?

Why do you think we fill up your yards,
your parks, your fields,
Crack through your asphalt and concrete
And parched dry ground?

Do you not realize we will not be vanquished?

Do you not remember we are here to help heal you?

You have forgotten.

Our medicine is so precious, so valuable,
We are a favorite of Brighid herself.
So precious, so valuable,
You brought us across the sea with you.
You could not imagine life without us.

You have forgotten.

Why do you think we keep coming back?

We adapt to shimmy under your mower blades.
We adapt to avoid destruction.
We adapt so that your poisons will never kill us.

We only come back stronger.

We are the herb of resistance.
Do you not realize we will not be vanquished?

You have forgotten,
So we come back, year after year,
No matter how much roundup (which is killing you, not us)
No matter how much you mow,
No matter how much you dig us out and throw us away
No matter what you do
No matter what you do
We come back, bursting through soil and concrete,
Waving our bright sunshine flowers to you,
Waving our dreaming puffball seed parachutes to you,
Pleading with you to remember.

 

Underneath all the layers of whiteness
the old memories are waiting for you,
Ancient memories when you and we
Lived together as community.

Do you remember?

You loved our medicine.

All our vitamins, our minerals,
Keeping you healthy and strong,
Keeping you in balance,
Thyroid and pancreas and kidneys,
Liver and blood and skin,
And oh! how you loved our bitters
To keep your bellies happy and
Organs cleansed of all that toxifies.

And you loved dreaming with
Our puffball seeds
And bringing our sunlight energy
Into your bodies and spirits
Come spring after long dark winters.

You loved that we offer ourselves up
To the bees
Like we offer ourselves up to you
And you loved us back.

You delighted in us.

Do you remember?

Your children still remember.

Have you seen the little girl across the street,
How she waters each one of us,
So tender and gentle with her watering can?
Have you seen how the little ones
Delight in our flowers, touching us, kissing us,
Blowing wishes with our puffball seeds.
Loving us back. Helping our medicine reach even farther.

Do you remember?

We keep coming back to remind you:
We are all the medicine you need for this
Addictive, destructive cycle in which you find yourselves.

We are the medicine that will bring strength
Back into your weak, anemic lifeblood.

We are the medicine that will heal your lack
Of balance with your own body’s rhythms,
With the earth’s rhythms.

We are the medicine that will release you from your addictions
To hollow sweetness, to consumption,
Even to power, even to the power you think you have over us.

We are the medicine that will bring sun’s energy
Into the fight for life and wholeness.

We are the medicine that will teach you
To duck under the punishing blades of capitalism
By remembering your worth is not defined
By systems of inhuman production
But by the fact you exist, just like us.

We are the medicine that will help you to resist
These systems that destroy even you,
That destroyed your memory of us
Under the toxic spray of conquest and assimilation,
Stealing your memory that you once belonged
To the land, to the hills and springs
And seasons and wildflowers,
not to whiteness, not to capitalism,
Not to life-as-an-assembly-line.

And we are the medicine that will remind you
That even that memory has not been destroyed
Because we are here
Waiting for you
Bursting through concrete to remind you.

We are here to remind you,
As your children remind you:
You were made for delight.

You were made for delight.

We are dandelion,
Crying out to you,
We are here to help you,
heal you, love you.
Start simply
By loving us back.

Luna Island Dandelions, Niagara Falls, NY