Sunflowers

Why Sunflowers?

Sunflowers are one of my favourite subjects for painting on pottery. Sunflower and bee mugs is where it all started, and I make sure I leave room in each kiln full for a few sunflower mugs. But why sunflowers? They do appeal to many people. It seems most prairie gardens have a sunflower or two (or dozens), whether they are decorative or for the seeds. Or just volunteer every year (I have a few volunteers this year). 

Sunflowers paint my childhood memories. At the end of every summer, my mom and I would pose with the sunflowers to mark the year (or special occasions), sort of like a mark on the doorpost to measure height. I started out in my mother’s arms as a baby, toddler, young child, and then I was the same height as my mom, and no longer fit in her arms. This same year (I was ten), the sunflower picture showed my mom in the late stages of pregnancy—the first appearance of my sister, Megan, in the sunflower pictures. The three of us posed for a few more years, but I soon got busy with being a teenager, and the sunflower pictures as a tradition faded away. Yet, all these years later, I still think of these photos, I look back with joy on these moments in time, and the sunflowers will always be part of the landscape of my soul and creative imagination. 

I’m anticipating the bloom of sunflowers in the coming weeks, watching the volunteer plants grow at a record rate with all the rain and heat. Last year, some of the sunflowers were at least seven feet tall and provided plenty of seeds for the neighbourhood birds and deer. I predict there will be many more sunflower photos this year, hopefully some with bees!

Here is a little poem I wrote last year about sunflowers. Maybe you’ll enjoy the poem as you sip your tea or coffee from a Lara Dawn Pottery sunflower mug.

Where Did the Yellow Go?

When the sunflower droops its head in the October frost, 

where does the yellow go? I understand enough to know—

at the cellular level the sunflower’s cells have burst because of the cold,

the contents have leaked out.

But if the yellow flowed out of the broken cell walls, where did it go?

Was it carried off on the backs of honey bees as a last prize–

a yellow blanket for the winter snows?

Did the yellow spiral down the hollow stem into the earthen bed below–

the sunshine absorbed into the ground, waiting for the spring warmth to call it forth once again.

Or did the yellow simply turn inward, revealing its other side—

Sunflower wears its death cloak now. 

In time, Sunflower will be completely absorbed,

cells scattered, turned under, nourishment for others.

This encounter with the dying is the hardest season. 

I stand here uncertain of my own journey, wondering if my yellow is fading,

wondering if my cells are slowly dying, scattering, absorbing into the earth. 

Couldn’t be. I am standing in my kitchen, my coffee in my hand–

truly I am still here, intact. 

But part of me has left, leaked out, transformed, reabsorbed.

Can I expect the yellow to rise again? Will my face move with the sun once more? 

Will I sway in the wind, and feed the bees? Time will tell, I suppose.

But I will live in one form or another–

as nourishment, as a seed. Perhaps as a word, 

a poem someone might on a shelf of a library or book store 100 years from now. 

Perhaps they are reading these words. 

Perhaps the yellow is rising up their eyes, their souls, as they

imagine sunflowers in all their glory—

Yellow. Alive. Resolute.