This is the second in a series of pages publishing the winning and highly commended poems in the People Need Nature/Young Poets Network "Ways to be Wilder" poetry competition, hosted by the Young Poets Network. We're also publishing the Judge Jen Hadfield's comments for each poem.
You've constructed this poem with a horologist's delicacy and precision. You've felt your way to a flexible form and music for your poem intuitively. Each stanza is structured differently, with never a redundant or heavily-placed word, and each true to the stretchy nature of time. We all know how a minute can pass in a blink, or seem to drag on for hours. But you also stop time, and make your reader hold their breath, before you dismantle the fragile dandelion clock with a puff of your own. I love that your consideration of time, and the present tense demands that your reader cherish every second.