A photograph of a sunflower was the prompt for Tanka Tuesday. I immediately thought of the sunflower field near us. People constantly stop to photograph it — it’s so lovely. Recently, on Facebook however, there were a number of nasty comments about the people stopping to look at the sunflowers. It’s dangerous, they said — and they were probably right.
But doggone-it, the sunflowers are so pretty.
I wrote a poem about the controversy (kind of) and shaped each stanza like a petal, using syllable counts 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1. Then I cut them out and put them in a collage.
Below, the poem in text form. Below that is my collage.
some
people
see the field
of sunflowers
and are in awe of
their beauty but
others see
the cars
that
pull
over
to the side
haphazardly
because somebody
in the car caught
sight of the
flowers
and
could
not help
but to slam
on the brakes and
climb out of their car
to draw closer
to the gold-
en beaut-
y
they
are drawn
by flowers
and more flowers.
they’re intoxicated
by the beauty
and don’t see
danger
to
self
or to
others – the
ones who are just
on their way to work
and don’t have time
for flowers
or they
are
weighed
down by
too many
cares — so they don’t
care or remember
to care, to see.
this world is
so so
rich
rich,
I say,
in beauty
golden yellow
living miracles
that came from seeds
and grew taller
than even
you or
me
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 