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Posts Tagged ‘sunflower’

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| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

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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Such Bright Yellow Petals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 5, 2015| 1 Comment »

“Come on,” I say, “come on,

this is your only chance.”

Every day for a month

I have walked into the garden

to speak to the sunflowers.

I try not to sound too urgent.

I don’t want to scare them,

but it is September and they

are still tall green stalks

with small tight buds.

“Come on,” I say. “There is still

warmth enough for you to bloom.

It’s what you are here to do.”

Just yesterday there was an inch

of hail on the divide. Every day,

it seems less likely that there will

be sunflowers this year. I notice

how much I want them to bloom,

how they have become more to me

than sunflowers in the garden.

What is it in us that wants

to see things flourish, especially

seeds sown by our own hands?

The sunflowers will bloom or they

will not. The moment I relax into this—

saying yes to the world just as it is—

inside me, I feel acres and acres

of golden heads all nodding.

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Transplant

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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A Good Reason to be a Gardener

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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