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Posts Tagged ‘sunflower’

While Thinking About Letting Go

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
I hold a sunflower in my heart,
not in golden bloom, but filled
with small, dry seeds,
a desiccated husk of a disk, brittle
and brown. I hold it here
as a reminder some gifts
look unwanted at first.
I remember the autumn afternoon
I went to pull the dead remains
from the garden, then watched
as the Stellar’s jays landed
atop the tall dark stalks
and feasted. So I let the row
stand instead of clearing it away.
In my attempts to remove
what seemed no longer useful,
I almost missed this chance
to see the Stellar’s Jays balance
on the tips of the plants,
their bodies a blue exultation of wing.
What else have I tried to clear
from my heart too soon? How
easy to miss what is still nourishing.
Out my window, the jays gather
at the banquet of what is dead.
I am learning the wisdom of holding.
 

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One Ongoing Dance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 27, 2024| 6 Comments »

in a field of dried weeds
you the golden sunflower
I the bee

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For When I’m Rushing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 8, 2024| 5 Comments »


 
 
Amidst the sunflowers
in full flagrant flowering,
I, too, begin to sprout
fat orange petals
and feel my head heavy
with growing seeds.
My mind becomes sun-drunk
and I gold and I spiral.
This is why you might see me
standing still in the garden
amongst the thick stalks,
though there is much to do.
Some animals freeze
as an instinct to survive,
and that may be true of me, too,
but I am not still out of fear.
Stillness saves me
not because I hide,
but because peace
seems to find me more
easily then and the body
unclenches and becomes
a blooming thing that lives
for the sake of blooming
right here where it’s planted.

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More Sunflowers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 11, 2023| 14 Comments »

The sunflowers, which came from seeds
no hand planted, now overshadow
 
the tomatoes, the eggplant,
the gardener, the beans.
 
They branch out across the pathways
and teem with bees and wasps.
 
Perhaps your heart, too,
knows something of exuberance,
 
knows what it’s like to burst
into an explosion of golden joy,
 
not just savoring the moment,
but growing more wildly into it,
 
reaching in all directions,
certain of its own beauty
 
and living to share it.

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Sacred Field

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 13, 2023| 7 Comments »

In the mural, the field of sunflowers
is always in bloom, always golden,
always opening to face the world.
How could I, tonight, not remember
another evening two summers ago
when the light was honeyed
and I stood in this very spot with my son,
two daughters and husband,
and we smiled wide as sunflowers,
our stems tall, the petals of my heart
unfurling. The image still sits in a frame
on my shelf—the last photo I have
of my son. Tonight, when I stood before
all that blooming, I broke. God, it hurt,
but I did not resist the breaking.
I stood in the middle of all that beauty,
the beauty as real as the pain,
the pain as real as any beauty,
stood in the middle of all those flowers
and cried, I cried and broke and
felt myself opening, unfolding like a flower,
my petals doing what petals do.

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More Love, More Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 31, 2020| 3 Comments »

 

 

Sorrow is how we learn to love.

—Rita Mae Brown, Riding Shotgun

 

 

If sorrow is how we learn to love,

then let us learn.

Already enough sorrow’s been sown

for whole continents to erupt

into astonishing tenderness.

Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant,

like sunflowers along the highway.

Let each act of kindness replant itself

into acres and acres of widespread devotion.

Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it.

The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater—

riotous love, expansive love,

love so rooted, so common

we almost forget

the world could look any other way.

 

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The Truth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 20, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

Inside the bright words

there are other words

that want to be said—

small words

in dark shells.

.

It reminds me

of the sunflowers

that grew in the fall—

how we loved them

for their golden petals,

 

but they were true

to the small dark seeds

that grew them,

to the small dark seeds

they grew.

 

 

 

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with great kindness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2019| 2 Comments »

inspired by Gnossienne 2, by Erik Satie

 

 

the way morning sun

touches the sunflower leaf—

you may say that’s not kindness,

it’s just how it is. exactly.

let me love like that

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Paradigm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 4, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

In almost every garden bed,

the sunflowers seedlings volunteer—

and every year I dig them up

and find them a home along the fence

where they can grow extravagantly.

Oh exuberance, of course

I love the sunflowers, their crazy willingness

to grow amongst the beets, amongst

the greens, amongst the chard

and kale and peas. I love their insistence

on making beauty and reaching for light.

I love their great golden heads,

playground of bees, nodding until

all their petals are gone. I know

they don’t mean to shade everything else,

don’t mean to block out the light.

They’re just doing what they were

designed to do. Grow tall.

Be stunning. Gather light. Make more.

 

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That’s the Kind of Summer It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2015| 1 Comment »

tall and clear

wholly illumined by sun

slowly I learn to see

the vase as lovely

even without the sunflowers

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