Behind foster houses,
dandelions grow wild,
nobody’s flowers,
nobody’s rules.
I pick them
like treasures,
blow seeds
into summer air—
wishes scattered
on wind.
Seven homes,
but dandelions
bloom everywhere.
They remember
spring
when I forget
which bed
is mine.
Golden stubborn,
they stay.
Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.
Photo by Unsplash
Bob, this is a finely honed poem: precise, sculpted, and utterly natural. You’ve done just enough and no more, which is hard to achieve, especially in 44 words. The dandelions hold it all: resilience, memory, displacement. (I have a soft spot for dandelions and poetry that includes them.) Nothing’s overplayed. Your poem is a stayer, just as dandelions are. Excellent.
Hi Dennis – thank you so much for your thoughtful and generous comment. Your observation about the dandelions holding “resilience, memory, displacement” captures exactly what I hoped to achieve, and knowing that the poem feels both “precise” and “utterly natural” means the world to me.
Your comment touches on something deeply personal for me. My partner and I have been foster carers for just over eight years now, and in that time we’ve welcomed many little people into our home. Each child has taught us something profound about resilience, loss, and what truly matters when everything else falls away.
During our initial foster care training all those years ago, we participated in a group exercise that has stayed with me ever since. The social worker asked us to call out all the things that were important to us as adults – our homes, our possessions, our relationships, our routines, our sense of identity and belonging. As people shared, these were written up on a whiteboard until it was completely filled.
Then, slowly and deliberately, the social worker began to erase these things from the board, one by one. Item after item disappeared until all that remained was a single word in the centre: “child.”
This powerful visualisation showed us what every child entering care experiences – the systematic loss of everything that once gave their world meaning and stability.
That exercise echoed through my mind as I worked on this week’s poem, but it was coupled with the beautiful natural elements in Sheila’s inspiration piece. While the whiteboard exercise showed us what gets erased, I wanted to explore what remains – those wild, untamed things that no system can control or take away.
The dandelions became that symbol of persistence. They’re nobody’s flowers, growing in the margins and forgotten spaces, asking for nothing yet offering everything. Like the children we’ve cared for, they’re survivors – golden, stubborn, and beautiful in their refusal to be diminished by circumstance.
Sarah, what a beautiful observation! You’ve captured something profound about dandelions that I hadn’t fully articulated myself. That moment when they transform from bright yellow blooms to those delicate seed heads isn’t an ending – it’s actually their most powerful beginning.
You’re absolutely right about the allegory. When dandelions reach that seemingly fragile stage, when they look like they’re fading away, that’s precisely when they become most resilient and far-reaching. Each seed carries within it the potential for new life, new growth, new possibilities. And isn’t that such a perfect metaphor for the children we’ve seen in foster care?
Thank you! Yes, ‘remains’ carries so many different meanings – what’s left behind, what stays constant, what endures despite all loss. Dandelions felt absolutely perfect because they truly embody that stubborn persistence, that beautiful refusal to disappear despite being overlooked.
Exactly. We all experience that disorientation during life changes. For foster children, it’s the repeated frequency and lack of choice that makes it particularly poignant.
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You’re absolutely right here. Even in the most loving foster homes (note the use of “houses” in the first line to reinforce hardened detachment) these children carry invisible wounds – the deep grief of separation, the ongoing confusion of not knowing where they truly belong. The care system itself inevitably creates additional trauma.
Hi Christine,
You’re absolutely right to highlight that devastating reality – when the very people meant to provide safety become the source of harm, it’s an unforgivable betrayal of the most vulnerable.
While thankfully those cases represent a tiny minority of carers, the damage they inflict echoes through the entire system and affects every child’s ability to trust again. What’s perhaps equally heartbreaking is how placements break down for so many other reasons – mismatched expectations, insufficient support from social services, carers unprepared for complex trauma or additional needs.
Each breakdown puts enormous pressure on an already overstretched system. We’ve seen children moved hundreds of miles from everything familiar simply because there aren’t enough local carers. Imagine being ten years old, losing your school, your friends, any hope of family contact – all because there’s nowhere suitable nearby.
The geographical displacement is particularly cruel. Children who’ve already lost so much then lose their community, their sense of place, sometimes their siblings placed elsewhere. They arrive at our door carrying not just their few belongings, but the weight of multiple rejections and the fear that this placement, too, might not last.
It’s a system under immense strain, and while most carers genuinely want to help, the lack of adequate training or recognition of the need for specialised training, ongoing support, and realistic preparation means too many well-intentioned placements simply can’t cope when the reality hits.
Bob
🥳
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Dear Bob, I have selected you as the Poet of the Week, congratulations! There were so many wonderful poems this week! But yours stood our to me and kept calling me back –
“nobody’s flowers, nobody’s rules.” For me, the dandelions become a metaphor for the unwanted child, the “nobody,” not important enough, or staying long enough to have any rules. I thought it was very well done.
Thank you again for participating!
Well said.
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I really hope I can—I’ve been very unwell this week with a viral Covid-like infection. Continual coughing and zero sleep for three nights. I shall take a look at your prompt now and see if I can manage something. If it could be half as beautiful as your poem it would be a win for me. 🙏🌼
Feign the virtue thou dost seek, till it becometh thine own
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