SUNFLOWER

Yellow sunflower
smiles at the sun.
Growing bigger,
almost done;
an old black crow
comes flying by
and gives those
sunflower seeds a try.
These seeds are tasty,
such a delight.
The crow ate all day
and into the night.
Now the crow
is round and fat,
while the sunflower
falls to the ground 
flat.

     Did you know that the sunflower seeds in the middle of the flower grow around and around in a Fibonacci sequence?  There are lots of plants that do this--pine cones, artichokes, and pineapples.  Are you familiar with the Fib poem?  It is based on the Fibonacci sequence too.  (A Syllabic form of poetry with the following number of syllables in each line.  1,1,2,3,5,8,13,etc. Each line is the combination of the two previous lines added together.)  Let's see if I can do this, the hard part is the beginning when the count is low.

Bright                              (1)
Sun                                  (1)
flower                             (2)
yellow shines,                 (3)
along comes a crow       (5)
and sits on the sunflower's spines,  (8)
then he opines, This is mine, all mine.  It's very fine. (13--I hope I counted that right.)

     OK, so your challenge for today is to write your own FIB.  Have fun writing.

Sunflowers

 A sunflower is a bit of sunshine,

a plate of butter,

a golden smile,

a yellow crown sparkling,

a large lemon lollipop,

a custard pie,

and a tasty feast

for the birds.

 Yesterday was a good Saturday.  I went to a program presented by children's poet Juanita Havill on the campus of the University of Arizona.  She met with about 25 children and their parents in the School of Education library.  The children flew poetry around the room, they memorized a poem, they did a choral reading and acted out a poem.  They illustrated a poem and they wrote their own poems.  It was a delightful morning for me and so much fun to listen to the children's creations.

     One of the things we did was write a poem about a sunflower seed.  I was so inspired, after writing my seed poem, I wrote the poem above about a sunflower. 

     Your challenge for today is to write a poem about a flower, a fruit or vegetable.  My poem is a list poem of all the ways to describe a yellow sunflower.  How many different ways can you describe your object?  How many metaphors can you find in my poem?  You're welcome to share your creations in the comments section below.

     I'm still reeling from the great party we had last Friday.  I know we were describing family members in the reunion photo,but I'm thinking what we have is a whole photograph album.  What fun.  I feel so grateful to everyone who dropped by, who came to the party and played along with me.  I'm feeling very much like Maurice Sendak's Really Rosie today.  I couldn't have so much fun playing with poetry if you weren't there to play along with me.  Thank you.  You're a wonderful bunch of friends.  Thank you for sharing your creations.