J.S. Watts
The Sunflower
This is my sunflower.
It’s pretty insignificant as sunflowers go.
Even in its pot it’s shorter than me
and I don’t stand so tall.
The seeds an unexpected gift
pressed like words
between the pages of a magazine.
They deserved to be spoken in the sun.
I took a chance,
planted them late
hidden down in the dark
and some took,
fresh feeding for the slugs,
but this one persevered,
flourished on hand-fed water
and produced the promise of a bud.
As the season grew
the promise started to whisper
and then to flower.
Small and unimpressive as it is,
it opened its petals to the sun
and smiled up at me.
J.S.Watts is the author of the poetry collections Cats and Other Myths, Years Ago You Coloured Me, and Songs of Steelyard Sue, all published by Lapwing Publications, and the novels A Darker Moon and Witchlight, both published in the UK and US by Vagabondage Press. J.S. lives and writes in Cambridge in the U.K. Her poetry, reviews and short stories appear in publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. For further details see www.jswatts.co.uk.