A Sunflower
Dawn Ramm
A seed escapes from the bird feeder.
Nestles into the soft mulch
of a pot of pansies
and grows.
And I am overjoyed.
It must have roots like claws
to spring so tall from that shallow bowl
to birth a bud that looks like lace.
Why does it thrill me so
to see the interlocked leaves unfold
to reveal an inner life.
A seedbed.
A spiral of delicate strands
like a mathematician's design
A galaxy for new seeds.
The yellow petals circle the pregnant disk
like rays from the nourishing sun.
It shines through my glass patio door.
And in the early morning I drink coffee and watch
that accidental plant how it glows in the gray dawn.
I have a plan.
I will plant sunflowers next summer.
I need to live another year.
Nestles into the soft mulch
of a pot of pansies
and grows.
And I am overjoyed.
It must have roots like claws
to spring so tall from that shallow bowl
to birth a bud that looks like lace.
Why does it thrill me so
to see the interlocked leaves unfold
to reveal an inner life.
A seedbed.
A spiral of delicate strands
like a mathematician's design
A galaxy for new seeds.
The yellow petals circle the pregnant disk
like rays from the nourishing sun.
It shines through my glass patio door.
And in the early morning I drink coffee and watch
that accidental plant how it glows in the gray dawn.
I have a plan.
I will plant sunflowers next summer.
I need to live another year.
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Dawn Ramm is 87 years old, lives in Fairfield, California, and has been writing poetry for a good many years. Nature is her inspiration. As she writes she tries to be true to what she sees and to how it effects her. Lately, the fact of her age and mortality has been creeping into what she writes, as the last line of "A Sunflower" which came quite unbidden.
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