The dandelion
snow
amassed
along curbs,
before parking blocks,
and settled
into cloistered pockets
of the pedicured lawn,
where, with studied solemnity,
the commencement tent
mewed
on the hill
above the haven.

The achenes
were the graduates,
the enrobed and hooded
faculty and trustees,
the families in finery—
lives, legacies borne aloft
into unknowable breezes,
hopeful life nurtured,
then dispersed
into June’s theory
and design.

in the mosaic the glass shards formed:
in succumbing
to the mess
of becoming.