standing in the garden
I gaze into the first sunflower—
mirror with a golden frame
Posts Tagged ‘sunflower’
One Reflection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, garden, mirror, reflection, sunflower on July 30, 2026| 2 Comments »
While Thinking About Letting Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, dead, holding, jay, letting go, sunflower 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.
One Ongoing Dance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, love, sunflower on September 27, 2024| 6 Comments »
in a field of dried weeds
you the golden sunflower
I the bee
For When I’m Rushing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged busy-ness, peace, stillness, sunflower 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.
More Sunflowers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exuberance, heart, love, sunflower 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.
Sacred Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, family, grief, loss, pain, paradox, sunflower 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.
More Love, More Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged equality, growth, love, sorrow, sunflower 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.
The Truth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, seeds, speaking, sunflower, truth 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.
with great kindness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, kindness, poem, poetry, sunflower 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
Paradigm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, land, poem, poetry, politics, sunflower 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.
Transplant
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gardening, poem, poetry, reslilience, sunflower on July 27, 2015| 1 Comment »
Those forlorn, sagging sunflowers,
all morning I watch the severe arcs
of their lifeless stems. Just yesterday,
they were so full of vigor before I pulled them up
and moved them across the garden.
I, too, have been ripped up. Is this why
I can’t stop staring at them all morning
at the slow, slow straightening,
the gradual unflagging of the leaves,
the marvelous resilience
I want to believe I might find inside me
no matter how brutal or well intentioned
the hand that tugs, tugs at my roots.
A Good Reason to be a Gardener
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, garden, poem, poetry, sunflower on July 27, 2014| 1 Comment »
It is not so easy to change.
Consider the sunflower you dug yesterday
from one crowded corner of the garden
and moved to another more open space.
How you dug all around it to keep the roots
intact. You pre-watered the new hole.
You told it what would happen. You held
the stem firmly and pulled with great care.
But it didn’t matter, all these precautions.
The sunflower wilted, bent double, leaves
flagged. So why should you not expect
the same when you make a great change
in yourself. It doesn’t matter that the end
result makes more sense or seems healthier.
Change is hard. Though you tell yourself
it will be okay. Though you tug at your own roots
with great care. Here you are, bent double,
dreams flagging, looking dead or close to dead.
And that sunflower, darned if it isn’t on the edge of bloom
even right now outside the window.
It doesn’t always go that way.
But sometimes a gray sky comes along
at just the right time to slow everything down
and damn if those petals aren’t just about
to come up gold.