Poetry Friday On Saturday - Sunflowers

This is getting to be a habit, but the truth is that Saturday morning is the best time for me to think about what to write. So, maybe I will break the tradition of Poetry Friday and have Poetry Friday on Saturday.

Thursday, February 7th, was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday. In August 1923 she wrote:

Out in the meadow, I picked a wild sunflower, and as I looked into its golden heart, such a wave of homesickness came over me that I almost wept. I wanted Mother, with her gentle voice and quiet firmness, I longed to hear Father’s jolly songs and to see his twinkling blue eyes; I was lonesome for the sister with whom I used to play in the meadow picking daisies and wild sunflowers. . . .
The real things of life that are the common possession of us all are of the greatest value - worth far more than motor cars or radios, more than lands or money - and our whole store of these wonderful riches may be revealed to us by such a common, beautiful thing as a wild sunflower.

from Writing to Young Women From Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Life As A Pioneer Woman
edited by Stephen W. Hines

“Two Sunflowers
Move into the Yellow Room”
from A Visit to William Blake’s Inn
by Nancy Willard

"Ah, William, we’re weary of weather,”
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
“Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?”

They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run.

“Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
It’s what sunflowers do.”

by Helen Keller

In My Book . . . The shadows have been chasing my family this week. We need to face the sunshine!