Tanka Sequence (Set)

Clothes

sunflowers
splashed all over
my dress—
bare-armed, I scattered
the seeds of childhood

for so long
she draped it around herself
the same thick cloak
that near the end
slipped off her shoulders

—Skylark, 5:1, Summer 2017

On bare ground

A poem that surfaced and survived as I tried to inch away from my writing drought:

on bare ground 
I sprinkle small seeds
with abandon
as if growing wildflowers
requires a lack of care

—Notes from the Gean, June 2011; Take Five (vol. 4), 2012

The many wildflower seeds I enthusiastically bought and sprinkled around didn't amount to much. Perhaps that's not surprising in this, what I sometimes call, godforsaken place where "nothing" will grow alongside the towering lobollies save hardy native vegetation such as yaupon and monster wild grape vines. Of course, the extensive droughts, ongoing temperature extremes, and certain other factors didn't help. 

But every now and then, when you're not really looking, a few seeds will work their magic: for me, a couple of years later, a single clump of Texas bluebonnets, the lemon-yellow blooms on Missouri primrose. . .