Dandelion

I've heard it said that if the humble dandelion could be found only on the remotest, most inaccessible slopes of the Himalayas, it would be the most highly prized flower in the world. Ever taken a good look at one and how superbly formed it is? Like so many of the truly wonderful 'ordinary' things that surround us, I often have to remind myself to look more closely - because so much of what we consider to be familiar is barely 'seen' in our daily rush. This gift of sight is indeed a strange phenomenon! We human beings so often fail to see that which is right beneath our noses. 

I lay in bed just after waking, just before 7am this morning beside my wife. We've been together for over thirty years. We met when she was nineteen and I was twenty. Both of us were a bit bleary-eyed after several busy days, and with less sleep than we operate at our best on. I'm not quite sure how it came about but we started discussing some of our favourite lines of poetry, and perhaps because I've not long returned from Swansea, Dylan Thomas came to mind. I
  recited some of the first lines from Under Milk Wood, "It is Spring, moon-less night in the small town, starless and bible-black ...". Jude quoted, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower ". She remarked, "Imagine how pleased we'd be with ourselves if we ever wrote a line that good?"
 
She's absolutely right of course.
 
But you know what? I think the thing I'm most pleased about is having a partner I wake up next to every morning who doesn't think I'm barking mad if I feel like discussing poetry at 6.50am.