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Column 176

Sunflower

Intro by Ted Kooser
08.13.2008

Hearts and flow­ers, that’s how some peo­ple dis­miss poet­ry, sug­gest­ing that’s all there is to it, just a bunch of sap­py poets weep­ing over love and beau­ty. Well, poet­ry is lots more than that. At times it’s a means of hon­or­ing the sim­ple things about us. To illus­trate the care with which one poet observes a flower, here’s Frank Steele, of Ken­tucky, pay­ing such close atten­tion to a sun­flower that he almost gets inside it. 

Sunflower

You’re expected to see
only the top, where sky
scrambles bloom, and not
the spindly leg, hairy, fending off
tall, green darkness beneath.
Like every flower, she has a little
theory, and what she thinks
is up.   I imagine the long
climb out of the dark
beyond morning glories, day lilies, four o’clocks
up there to the dream she keeps
lifting, where it’s noon all day.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2001 by Frank Steele. Reprinted from “Singing into That Fresh Light,” co-authored with Peggy Steele, ed., Robert Bly, Blue Sofa Press, 2001, by permission of Frank Steele. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.